Proper preparation of a live-feed fluffy [by Maple]

The video starts, a tall blonde woman steps into the frame of a darkened room.

“Hi everyone, welcome to Snake Experiences! Today I’m going to answer one of the most common questions I’ve been asked: what reptiles can eat fluffies?”

She rummaged under the table in front of her and plopped a hogtied and gagged purple unicorn in front of her. Its cries were muffled by the electrical tape around his mouth but the tears matting down his cheek fluff was obvious.

“Let’s get one thing out of the way.” The woman continued, “Fluffies are not naturally suitable prey for any captive reptile. Whenever possible, get a rodent, fish, or bird that suits your pets biological needs better. But, feeding these animals can get expensive, and I can’t argue with the utility of a fluff-based diet for most creatures.”

She slaps the side of the unicorn, who yelps softly around the gag. “Fluffies are high-fat, high-protein, but lack many necessary nutrients. The fluff can be problematic for some reptiles, and shaving may be necessary.”

The unicorn began to struggle in earnest now, the tape around his hooves ripping out the fluff.

“Thankfully, this guy can keep his fluff today.”

The unicorn relaxed, mumbling something inaudible around the tape.

“So, you can’t deny the price tag, how do you make a fluffy more suitable for you pet?”

She leaned down again, pulling supplies out and setting them on the table around her. The unicorn watched apprehensively as she placed plastic tubing, a ball of twine with a large needle stuck in the side, a small white cylinder, and a large green bottle on the table around him.

“To start with, make sure your fluffy is from a reputable source. Ferals can carry all sorts of diseases and parasites, even foreign bodies like glass or metal inside them. It’s not worth the risk, nor the time it would take to get them fattened up, for free fluffies. This boy is from a reputable breeder who produces fluffies specifically for animal feed.”

The unicorn frantically shakes his head as she talks.

“You want to look for a fluffy without any hanging fat.” She pinches the skin on his belly, pulling up a flap as he struggles. “Look for loose skin, like this, along the belly. Fluffies should be nice and lean to avoid obesity in your pets.”

“The next thing you want is to empty the fluffy.” She picked him up, holding him around the chest. “No matter how long it’s been since a fluffy has eaten, there’s always a little bit left in them.”

With a sudden squeeze, the unicorn’s eyes bugged out as shit rocketed out of his asshole.

“Don’t worry folks, I’ve got a bucket on the floor below me.” She dropped him down roughly on the table again, a soft “huu-huu” emanating from the miserable purple creature.

“Now you’re going to want to clean him up. No need for it to be spotless, just get the worst of it.” She wipes at his hind end with a paper towel roughly.

“Now we need to discuss plugging. I’ve seen many a guide for plugging a fluffy, and very few of them recommend using something a reptile can digest. If your pet can eat veggies occasionally, like an iguana or tegu, feel free to use a carved carrot or other root veggie. If you’re feeding an obligate carnivore though, that’s not going to fly. So I recommend this.” She picks up the white cylinder, holding it up so the camera can focus on it. “This is a mineral plug. Its water soluble, fully digestible, and a wonderful calcium supplement to counteract the soft bones of a fluffy. I use these even when I could use something like a carrot, they’re just better practice.”

She lifted the unicorn up by the tail, it squirmed as she lined up the plug with its asshole.

“Press it in firmly, and get the whole thing inside.”

The unicorn screamed around his gag, eyes wide, as she pressed the plug into him. It took a moment of steady pressure before the end of the white plug finally disappeared. She dropped the fluffy again, and his hind legs twitched and spasmed as he tried to press the foreign body out of him.

“There. Now, you ask, why plug them if they’re empty?” She picked up the hose and the green bottle. “Because we’re going to gutload him. This here is FluffGoo, a product from our sponsor BioGrift. I’ve used this for years, and it has always been my preferred gut loading material. There are others out there that are good enough, but this is just a really good broad spectrum feed for carnivores. For a fluffy this size we’ll need the whole bottle.”

She set both items aside. “Now of course, you’ll need to ungag your fluffy. Remember that fluffies can scream at volumes that can damage your hearing, wear protection.” She held up some orange ear plugs, then put them in.

The unicorn struggled as she unwound the electrical tape. He screeched as the final layer ripped out a line of fluff around his muzzle, revealing raw pink skin.

“Mummah… nu wan-” He was cut off by the tube being shoved into his mouth.

“Now the fluffy’s stomach is about here.” She pointed to a spot just below his rib cage. “So you shouldn’t go any further than that. You do need to get into the lower esophagus, so shoot for at least the base of the neck.”

The unicorn began to struggle again as she fed the tube into him. She pressed down firmly on his chest, his eyes silently pleasing with her as she pushed the tube further.

“Now if you want to feed live, you need to double check that you’re not in the lungs.” She put her ear to the end of the tube. “If you hear any whistling or gurgling, you’re fine. The stomach should be more or less silent. If you fuck it up, the fluffy dies pretty quickly I’ve found. Not a problem unless your pet absolutely will not take prekilled food. If you’re planning on killing the fluffy, do it after emptying, as I’ve found they are prone to squirting upon death.” She gave an exaggerated shutter, looking at the camera in horror. “You’ll only make that mistake once!”

“Now that you’re sure that you’re in the right pipe, cut the end of the nozzle off the bottle.” She gave it a quick snip with a pair of shears under the table. “This kind can be put into a caulk gun. That’s with a U-L-K, folks. Don’t get me demonetized.” She snapped the bottle into a metal caulk gun, and shoved the end into the pipe. “Then just fill 'em up!”

The unicorn was shaking its head again as the greyish goo made its way down the tube and into his stomach. The woman pulled the trigger of the caulk gun over and over, ignoring the silent protests of the fluffy.

“This is made mostly of lean fluffy meat but it’s mixed with supplements and additives to better replace the rodents or birds they would be eating in the wild. This is the FluffGoo General Carnivore, but it does come in species specific formulas. This is a good one to use if your pets only eat fluffies on occasion, for something like the enrichment of live prey. Its the cheapest, but if you have something with a more specialized diet you should get a formula for them. Link in the bio to the FluffGoo store, subscribers to my channel get 15% off their full purchase!”

The woman pulled the trigger one last time before setting it aside. The unicorn’s eyes rolled back in his head, his struggles becoming weaker and weaker.

“Now fluffies can actually go quite a bit of time without breathing, but you still want to move kinda quick. With smaller fluffies you will of course be able to move faster, but most will have passed out by this point.” She pulled the tube from the fluffy, a small gasp of air entered it as its throat was unblocked. “A benefit for us.”

She picked up the ball of twine. “Now he’s an important step. If you plan on gagging your fluffy you need to use something that your pet can digest. No threads, no tape.” She unrolled a small amount of the twine. “This is a twine made from sausage casings, link to that video at the end. If this isn’t something you can get, you can try tying some raw fluffy hide around the muzzle but honestly that’s never worked for me. Always slides off.”

She grabbed the partially conscious unicorn by the muzzle, lifting him up into the light. His tail flicked lightly as he tried to focus his eyes on her.

“Muh…mmmuhmuh… Wai….?” he mumbled around her hand.

“With this, just sew em shut!”

She plunged the needle through the unicorns lips, and his eyes shot open. He tried to scream but her hand forced his jaws shut, teeth audibly grinding as she quickly sewed his mouth shut.

“This has the added benefit of making him unable to vomit, keeping as much of that good goo inside him!” She jokingly patted his bloated side as she tied the thread off. “Just remember to use as little of your sausage thread as possible, it’s still not super great for reptiles.”

She dropped him again to the table, where he tried to free his hooves from the hogtie.

“Mmm! Mmmmmm mmmm MMMM!” The unicorn hummed angrily.

“Last step is to remove anything that could harm your pets.” She flipped him over, legs buckling under him uncomfortably. “This horn here could be a problem, on foals you can leave them as they’re soft enough to digest but this could cause some serious hurt!”

“Mmmm! MM MM MM MM MM MM-” The unicorn shook his head wildly as she approached with the shears. She pushed the terrified fluffy down by his neck, putting the shears against the base of his horn.

“These are surprisingly hard, so you’ll need good scissors for this. Just keep pushing and they’ll go through.”

“-MM MM MM MM MM-”

SNIP

The violet horn tip bounced off the unicorn’s nose, rolled across the table in front of its owners horrified eyes, and then clattered to the floor.

“And there you go! If you have a pegasus you can remove the wings as well but it’s not required. Some snakes just hate the feathers.”

She picked up the now despondent fluffy by the scruff, holding him up to the camera. “Now be sure that you remove the restraints before feeding. Fluffies can’t swing their hooves hard enough to harm anything big enough to eat them.”

The unicorn just stared at the shard of purple on the floor as she ripped the tape off his hooves.

“Now if you’ll come with me, we’ll get him to his new friend.”

The camera angle changed, looking into a small pool room. There was a low wooden fence around the green watered pool, and a large ramp covering the stairs going in.

“This is Marlo’s pool!” The woman said, entering the frame at the back of the pool. “Let’s see if she’s hungry.”

The woman clamped the fluffy’s scruff onto the end of a long pole and extended him over the water. The unicorn trembled as he was held over the surface of the water, back hooves dripping urine into the pool.

“Yeah, no way to stop that part, but I promise this girl doesn’t care.” The woman laughed. “C’mon, girl! Dinner!”

She dunked the fluffy quickly into the water, pulling his soaked form back up while his hooves flailed.

At the far side of the pool a large reptilian nose stuck out from an artificial log. Slowly, one careful step at a time, a nearly seven foot American alligator crept towards the pool.

“Oh, sorry girl! I thought you were swimming!” The woman extended the fluffy closer to the log, the fluffy freezing upon seeing the monster sizing him up.
“So no getting you to jump for me, darn. Well, go swim for it.”

She pulled a string on the pole and the clamp released, dropping the purple fluffy into the green water. The unicorn plunged under the surface and Marlo’s massive form followed quickly.

“MMM-MMM!!” The fluffy tried to scream as his head rose from the water. “MM MMM MMM-”

His eyes grew wide just for a moment and then he was pulled back under the water. There was a moment of bubbles rising, and then the dark head of the gator rose out of the water, mouth full of twitching purple fluff. She slowly swam back to her log, pulling her barely struggling prey into it.

“Isn’t she something?” The woman said, hands on her hips like a proud mother. “She gets fluffies on occasion, she really likes her live prey. Live feeding is usually too risky for the enrichment, but fluffies are ideal for it."

She stepped over the fence, putting the feeding pole on a hook. A loud crunch emanated from the faux log followed by a wet snapping noise.

“That’s all I’ve got for you, I hope this helped clear up some misconceptions about proper reptile feedings! For more information there will be some resources in the description, and don’t forget to subscribe!”

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Por fin,un buen uso para los fluffies :smiling_face:/Finally a good use for fluffies :smiling_face:

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<3

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Wow this was a good read! Very funny and well written! Bravo, encore! :martinidrink:

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Wonderful!! I love a well fed, well cared for and loved reptile. :black_heart:

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You never fail to disappoint, Maple.

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It’s so nice to see reptiles as beloved pets. They’re beautiful. :sparkling_heart:

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If I wasn’t such a fucking hippie I would have a snake. I love ball pythons so much, but I don’t have it in me to feed them.

I’ll stick with my spoiled ass Betta fish.

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lovely, love seeing fluffy’s being prepared as food.

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So the low quality shitrats replace the innocent rats xD

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Cripes. Fluffies aren’t even good at being snake food. New low.

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As a native Floridian, I love our swamp doggos.

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Ooh, betta! I had two, in separate tanks, many a year ago. Mr. Hashimoto, and Chang. They lived for, like, three years, and loved to nibble my fingertip. They were good fish.

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I have a red and white gal in 40 gallons, Magilou. I was originally going to do a divider but she’s so happy with all that space, I couldn’t take it away from her. She just turned one, I got her from a local breeder so I have her actual hatch day to celebrate!

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Awww! That’s so cool! She sounds like a super happy fish. :sparkling_heart:

Would call that worldbuilding, but Youtube actually does work that way :face_with_diagonal_mouth:

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Very well done! I love addressing the trope of ‘fluffies as pet food’ as it makes a good deal of sense that a relatively weak animal like a fluffy would probably actually be somewhat problematic as a live feeding animal due to the potential pathogens, potential issues with the fluff itself, and of course the lack of lean protein muscle. I completely forgot how one of my roommates would use to dust crickets in calcium powder before feeding his pet frogs, the pre-filling with FluffGoo reminded me of that. And I admire the pet owner for being extra considerate of her pet up to even ensuring the plug and thread are safe and edible!

I wonder if a similar thing is true here for chirpies- an acceptable but lower quality in general live feed for medium sized pets, compared to newborn rats. I’m itching now to see some lil newborn babbehs get dunked in vitamin powder and then given to a hungry snake friend.

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Finally, a way to feed obligate carnivores without any cruelty to animals! It’s essentially a vegetarian diet, same as lab-grown meat. A great stride in animal welfare.

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Every time I thought about a snake (or other creature) eating a fluffy I always imagined the spray of shit that would get all over the enclosure and… It seemed like a pain to clean, even if you used a separate feeding area. Like there’s no way a big snake is easy to clean fluffy shit off, and I don’t think leaving that sort of biohazard all over them is a good idea.

I might do a follow-up if I get the drive for it, I had a ton of ideas that I didn’t get to play with.

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I’d love a follow-up if you have the time and energy. Happy reptiles make for a happy me.

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