It’s a well known fact fluffy foals need milk within their first 24 hours to live
However, fluffy pony mares will push away, injure or even kill foals that are not their own to protect their own foals and make sure they have that milk
It’s not their fault, they were designed that way by Hasbio
The original batches of fluffy ponies shared too much and ran out of milk for their own foals
They would wet nurse foals that were already well fed.
Foals were either overfed, underfed or starved to death
So the caring, sharing batch was culled and replaced with a more productive way to “increase product yields”
Sadly culled for being too much hugs and love
Unfortunately the tweak in making sure mares fed their own foals first went too far
Hence why the aggression from mares when foals not of their brood try to feed
The mare kicks them away, calls them “Milk stealers” and usually yells “Nu steaw miwkies from gud babbehs!”
Again, not their fault. They were designed that way to “Protect the product”
Mares recognise their brood by smell as well. So you can’t blindfold them and muzzle them. They will cry and kick and scream and scare off the foals they were meant to feed if they can smell any intruding foals
Real bad if it’s scaring distressed “Chirpie” foals who need the milk to survive. They will crawl away in fright from the mare lashing out
Worse, if the orphaned foals take their milk. The mare will become severely depressed, thinking there’s not enough for their own foals, even when they are well fed and neglect their own foals thinking they are “Wowstest mummahs”. Depression and even the “Wan Die” loop are even possible if the milk is “Stolen”
Fluffy pony logic can go from 0-60 pretty quick.
They wouldn’t wet nurse for orphans as well unless they lost their own foals to stillbirth.
You can’t just put a bunch of orphaned foals in front of a mare, unless the mare has lost her own foals by stillbirth, abortion, death.
Then they will let them feed out of compassion and “Heart Hurties”
Might have been a loophole Hasbio forgot or just instinct kicking in
They were gonna fix it in the next “Revision” of Fluffy Ponies
A “Nurse Mare function” so that a mare will share milk if they have some available. So Orphaned foals would never be an issue again in Hasbio plants.
But then The Breach happened. And they never got to fix it. Thank PETA for making things worse like they always do.
Shelters know this too well.
Most orphaned foals that were brought in post Breach starved to death because there was little to no milk.
Dairy milk, cream with added sugar and other alternatives just weren’t good enough to keep most of them alive.
Some survived for a few days before expiring. The lucky few managed to get out of danger to weaning on soft vegetables and oatmeal
So the shelters tried shooting mares up with hormones. But again Mares wouldn’t take any brood that didn’t smell like their own.
Fluffies also didn’t have the “Tummeh bahbbies” feel. So they knew not to feed as well to save their milk for their own foals when they arrived no matter how hard they were told “Those are your foals now”.
Even severe punishment like heavy sorry sticking didn’t work. They just wouldn’t let the foals feed.
That’s why some breeders and industrial mills “Milk bag” a fluffy by taking their legs, and hooking them up to a wall and shooting them up with hormones.
Shelters can’t do this unless it’s a really bad situation.
Some larger shelters in bigger cities have milkbags because it’s the only way they can keep the amount of orphaned foals brought in properly fed even though they dislike it.
But Milkbags sadly, work.
Foals will just gravitate to the smell, latch onto the teats and the mare can’t do anything about it.
Perfect for large groups or raising an Alicorn
No fluffy trying to crush a “Munstah Babbeh”, a goldmine to most breeders.
Some humans like the sweet taste of fluffy milk as well
It’s a bit weird. But it’s apparently popular in some deserts
You’d think with how sharing and caring fluffies are, they wouldn’t mind humans near their teats either.
Problem is, Hasbio designed fluffies to not want humans to be near their teats at all
It was a built in security measure to stop kids messing around with them. It’s a kids toy designed for little girls, what do you expect?
They would scream “Nu touch miwkie pwaces!” and that was the cue for parents to intervene
Hasbio designed it so their staff wouldn’t fuck around with the brood mares as well. One scream like that from a mare and security would arrive to drag them out unless they had a good explanation like a vet doing an examination.
Not nice for the vet when their patient was screaming at them constantly. Ear protectors became essential when working around fluffies.
Of course that was before the breach when breeder mares got into the ecosystem along with unfixed colts and basically became the default fluffy.
So how do you milk a fluffy as a human then?
Milk a fluffy with your hands, they get very uncomfortable and upset because you are taking milk for their foals and screaming, loudly.
Keep doing it, they won’t want to speak with you at all and will try to run away yelping “Nu steaw miwkies!” and calling you a “Munstah”
Eventually they freak out and try “attack” you via biting or the famous “Sorry poopies.
But someone out there always needs fluffy milk.
Be it vets, breeders, shelters, someone who needs to feed an orphaned foal in an emergency or someone who just likes cooking with fluffy milk.
So you have to do it like any other animal
That’s why you have this special facility.
Built in an old warehouse. A long line of spacious cages line the walls with room for fluffies to live comfortably.
You have about 100 mares in total at your last count, give or take.
Each one now gets a reasonably spaced cage with some toys to brighten their day
Better than other industries. But they are still caged up from dawn till dusk
They get a generous helping of kibble. Spaghetti every Sunday to try keep them going psychologically if they have something to look forward to.
You get your mares from shelters or fluffy control pick ups. No need to breed your own when there’s plenty available for a low cost via shelter donations.
Usually your milk mares are ferals or bad colors. Sometimes surrenders from owners. The odd “Shit factory” breeder. Most of them already marked for death before you repurposed them
Some have foaled before. Some haven’t.
But they are all here to do the same thing. Produce Fluffy mare milk.
You don’t have them knocked up though. That’s a waste of time
Instead a number of hormone shots are given at the start of every week.
Your vet technician on staff administer the shots. Can’t trust regular staff with this in case they kill the stock.
There’s always crying. Fluffies hate painful needles. Even when someone who knows what they are doing is injecting them
The hormone shot usually gets them lactating within 24 hours
Otherwise the fluffies get to take it easy during the day. Staff performing welfare checks on the fluffies so they are reacting well to the hormones.
The fluffies are generally playful once they get over the shots, especially the newer mares in the system.
The fluffies have some toys to keep the occupied and FluffTV is always playing on the monitors on the wall.
You encourage staff to be nice to them and even form some small attachments. It eases the psychological stress for the mares and even some staff are less stressed.
You don’t hire abusers. This isn’t an abusive factory. Don’t want to risk damaging the product via blood or poop in the milk after an abuser’s had their fun.
Former Ferals are the easiest to handle. They just want food and shelter. They last the longest. Sometimes even years. You even had about five die of old age. The factory was preferable to the cruelty of outdoor life for a fluffy pony.
Breeders usually ask if they can have some more babies. But they last a moderate amount of time. Usually the best at producing milk however.
Former domestics plead constantly for their old homes back. Their minds usually break quickest. You avoid picking them up unless the shelters are short on ferals.
People ask you, “why not milkbag them?”
Well, Milkbag lives are much shorter. More prone to heart attacks, getting sepsis from bedsores and generally just a mess unless you are a massive operation who can churn through them.
Only breeders who have really valuable foals or Alicorns really need milkbags. Some medical and industrial settings where they need the fluffies to grow as big as possible in a sort timeframe as well like fertilizer factories or medical labs.
Shelters don’t like using milkbags. But they will usually source some from their own mares if they have a rush of orphaned foals at the same time. They are well looked after, which ironically prolongs their life and suffering
Larger shelters in bigger cities have them just to help cope with the sheer number of orphans even though they hate it too.
Otherwise, it’s just an abuser technique to punish a mare for not feeding a foal
A bit over the top. But much like fluffy logic, abuser logic escapes you a lot of the time.
You let your fluffies have their legs and their mobility to keep them sane as much as possible.
“Why the cages though?” you may ask
Well, you were nice at first. An idealist, really.
You created a nice row of nests and a big play area for the mares.
You would hope that allowing them socialization, play and hugs would let them be more calmer.
It worked for a while.
But soon after, fights would break out
Mares would become paranoid.
Turned out the hormones making milk made a lot of them believe they would foal soon.
They then would accuse each other of stealing foals from each other when the foals failed to arrive.
Fights would break out where Mares would demand what other fluffy pony hid their foals
More mares were spending time in the sorry box than in the milking machine
So they all had to be separated in cages.
So what exactly breaks these mares so easily? It’s the the milking process is what breaks them
No matter how pleasant you make it for the fluffy and the staff. It’s still a psychological nightmare for the fluffy
At 3pm. Your technicians takes every mare that’s lactating from their cage
Some of them enjoy being taken from the cage. Especially the Pegasus mares who think they are flying. Some of the more “Experienced” mares dread it and start crying almost immediately.
Some try to attack with bites or “Sorry poopies” or even make an escape. They get muzzled for the milking process and a trip to the sorry box for the night, afterwards
You have to clamp down hard on any dissent so they don’t get any ideas.
You have a large milking area set up featuring rows of immobilization boards along a wall.
Your staff place them in an immobilization board before attaching two suction cups to their teats
A Grate at the back to catch any “scaredy peepies and poopies”, of course.
The cups have a mild suction that takes the milk out and deposits it in a tank below
The crying really begins when the suction lines are turned on.
The mares Desperate pleas to the machine to “no steaw miwkies!” ring out.
Newer mares usually strain and scream in the board, unable to escape
More experienced ones just cry
You allow your staff to wear headphones or ear protectors as the cacophony of despair gets pretty loud some days.
This process takes an hour but is excruciating mentally and physically to the mares
Especially if the suction cups get stuck on the delicate teats.
Your staff plays some Fluffy Videos on a screen from a projector to try to ease the process.
All the immobilization boards are facing the screen, so the fluffy has to watch.
Some will watch intently. Others know it and still cry.
All the videos are about foals missing their dead mothers. The voice over, a fluffy style narration tells the fluffies their milk is being taken to help feed the foals who’s “Mummahs went forever sleepies”
This tries to explain to the newcomers why the milk is being taken. Some get it, some freak out more about “Nu Steaw Miwkies!”
These videos last a long while and show orphaned foals go from weak chirpies struggling to fully grown foals playing with their new owners
After the process is done for the day at 4pm.
A video is played on the TV featuring lots of new born foals being bottle fed.
A fluffy voice thanks them for the “Good miwkies for gud babbehs” and declaring them all “good fluffies”
Murmurs of “Babbehs” run through the mares as the staff take them out
Some are hugging the staff and complaining of sore teats as the staff assure them they are good fluffies for giving up their milk for foals who need it
Others are crying their eyes out because they don’t have any milk any more for any potential foals that might appear.
All the mares are placed back in their cages with a treat as you let them cool off for the day.
Any who tried attacking the staff get their punishment.
One night in the sorry box with the muzzle still on.
It’s a perfect set up, right?
Not really. The psychological damage adds up.
As said at the start of our little story. Fluffies feel very violated if you are taking their milk.
Breeder mares have always been conditioned to be ready for foals by Hasbio. Its in their instinct.
Having no milk when foals might come at any time induces severe anxiety
Suctioning out their milk also creates even more anxiety
Your night security staff always talk about hearing the fluffies talk about the “milk stealling monster”
Some ferals shrug it off for a long time because a home and food is better than losing some milk. Up to a year or two in some cases before they break, if they even break at all.
Some Ferals even get that it’s not a monster and the videos get through to their little fluffy heads they are helping. Fluffies love to help other fluffies.
But some former breeders and domestics begin to develop a fear quickly.
Eventually some have have a breaking point. The “Wan Die” loop.
Eventually the fear of the milk stealing monster gets to them and they believe they never will have milk for their foals. Their small minds snap and want to die because the “milk stealing monster” is always going to be there ready for them at 3pm every day
A mare in the “Wan Die” loop usually stops eating at that point.
They no longer produce milk because they stop eating.
At that point. You officially retire them
Your staff are instructed to give them a few days of TLC as sometimes they come around along with daily checks by the Vet tech.
Again. You’re not an abusive mill. You give them a chance. But there’s always replacement mare at a shelter ready to be acquired
Some of the staff take them home if they are attached if they make it out of the loop, just to give a shot of normality before they die. But it’s only a few months before the fluffy usually expires in its sleep from stress or the loop coming back. But some of your more experienced staff know and don’t care. Just giving the fluffy peace after a life of work is enough for them.
If they aren’t back to their fluffy selves and you can’t find a home. Your technician replaces their hormone shot with a gentle lethal injection instead and they are softly put to sleep.
Their body is thrown out with the biowaste
It’s unfortunate. But you can’t waste too much time on giving comfort to the broken mares.
You’ll find a replacement easy enough and soon your procurement officer starts ringing shelters. They have no problem with you taking a mare that will never get a home as long as the donation money helps keep them open
The mares are what bring in much needed funding to the shelter. The Mares are making a true sacrifice. Though their tiny fluffy brains may not comprehend it. They are saving their own kind
There’s always a fluffy out there that needs milkies.