Headcanons-
As taken from William Gregorys personal notes.
Fluffies share a great deal of rabbit reproductive cycle- month long gestation, approx. one month to wean, hitting reproductive capability long before real maturity, ovulation triggered by breeding, capable of getting pregnant essentially the day after whelping, and both male and female being driven by mating urges once grown enough unless fixed, males far more visibly so.
Pair bonding between male and female is the norm, with monogamy lasting until the loss of one mate, but enough other behaviors have been observed to suggest the full range of human sexual behavior is possible, if more unlikely. High stress levels from human intervention or environmental pressure has been known to cause drastic changes in social behavior. (See my documentation thesis, if my former employers haven’t redacted it into absurdity when they cast all of my ilk to the blacklisted winds.) Social activities are paramount to their lives, consisting of communal living, loose hierarchy, and a vast variety of cooperative behavior.
Social grooming and preening of the namesake fluff, manes and tails is also present and an important bonding behavior in groups, as well as being vital in groups away from human hygienic assistance. Their stereotypical dislike of water is not unfounded given the inclusion of chinchilla dna to develop that ideal fluff. While they are not nearly as impacted by damp and heat as that source material, care must still be taken to ensure they are dry to the skin after water exposure or bathing, lest fungal issues or fur-rot take hold under the surface, visible fluff. Blow drying is recommended if bathing is required, as well as keeping the fluffy in a temperature controlled environment until fully dry. They are also susceptible to heat exhaustion in high temperatures, just as much as they suffer from hypothermia at the other extreme.
They are intended as primarily herbivorous, with enough opportunistic omnivorous behavior to allow them to handle most treats and table scraps a human handler might toss them. The occasional flare of cannibalism and the assorted triggered mutations was under study when the project was ruined by those self righteous fools. Entirely vegetable diets are sustainable,but not as nutritious as grain based foods. Incidentally, while they are highly resistant to allium-genus based toxicity compared to many convention pets, excessive amounts do still trigger digestive issues, (which given the amount of garlic in some spaghetti sauces we always had a great deal of evidence regarding the end result of such upset) and they are remarkably susceptible to many other culinary utilized vegetable based chemical deterrent. Capsaicin, high levels of pepperin, caffeine, and most forms of alcohol are all far more efficacious in their systems than expected.
Certain levels of discrimination against non- ideal foals were observed in the lab, and was on the list of unexpected bugs waiting to be dealt with before the product went into commercial production. The frequent, near inexplicable phobia of Alicorns was at the top of that list. My current theory on the escalation of lesser foal issues involves less than savory breeding practices and stock escaping into the wild.
Classic fluffy life cycle has them reaching reproductive age by three months, full grown by five months, and remaining fertile for up to 8 years of a possibly 12 year lifespan. (excessive breeding or other stressors limit this significantly, as does any less than ideal conditions or high inbreeding coefficients.) “Earthies” tend to be larger and stockier, pegasi lighter and more nimble, Unicorns slightly more intelligent and capable of low level bioluminescent displays from their little stub of a horn. Alicorns have all three in spades, as the saying goes. That said, all four varieties are usually lacking in problem solving skill or situational awareness, as well as being remarkably fragile of bone and skin, but do recover quickly from non lethal injury. It is very rare for a fluffy to bleed to death without extreme measures.
As for my own personal project sub- species, the carnivorous so called “demonfluffs”, they still possess many of the same traits. Theoretically.(Katherine, remind me to update this when you glean more information from Siana about her little charges. I could be months further on research if George or Kalden could follow instructions and not continually slaughter them out of hand.)
The gestation duration and weaning time should remain unchanged, as far as most of… oh, shit Katherine, send me copies of everything you get on the clawed or bat winged failures. I might have realized where I fucked up the underlying issue causing viability issues. Yes, I’m aware my most recent experiments and trials have… stressed the available budget. We can research and try to resume trials of that concept when the funding is available again.
Er…where was I? Ah, yes.
The base configuration remains unchanged for the most part, cosmetic changes aside. They should reach about 115% to 150% of median classic fluffy size since my original plans of 200% to 300% were vetoed, allowing reasonable advantage over their presumed prey without “significantly increasing their risk to human beings or other animals”. spoilsports I implemented many of the planned upgrades I saved the specifications to when I took everything not nailed down in the old lab salvaged my current equipment. Their bones should reach about the same density as a similar sized, lightly built canine. Shetland Sheepdogs are the comparison Katherine and Siana have both used, and it is reasonably accurate.They also have bowel control equivalent to such a canine, which was an improvement I was eager to implement.
The horns should keep the bioluminescence potential typical to most unicorn variants, while reaching just long and sharp enough to be a valid weapon. Their hooves have been modified to full keratin instead of hoof shaped leather pads, in which the artiodactyl cloven variety derived from pudu, muntjac deer, and dik-diks has proven more efficacious than the more equine solid composition originally explored. The wings are also now significantly more avian in configuration, if not fully the ones I had planned. I did manage to insert a few derivations of Cygnus or Anserinae into a few trial specimens. (Sadly the only viable extant example, a genus Branta/ Aquila based alicorn, while incredibly striking in appearance with gold barred wings, seems to be running into handling problems. Specimen 1C is thus currently unusable as evidence for increased size or percentage of goose/ waterfowl traits.) The Platysmurus/Corvus and Pavo/Arini specimens seem successful, however, and so I must comfort myself with that. While none of them are remotely flighted, they do have the correct aesthetics for what we were looking for, and the wings are usable to a similar level as the horn.
They are, as advertised, primarily carnivorous, if not quite obligate carnivores. A certain amount of nutrition is currently required, easily achieved by a bit of supplemented mince in addition to fluffy carcasses. Or any decent formulation of dog or cat kibble, really, although anything with synthetic taurine seems to provoke at least mild digestive upset. They possess dentition and jaw strength suitable to this diet, which has been a mild point of contention between some of my new colleagues and I. I maintain they are at best still no more hazardous if pushed into biting than any small lap dog or cat, and more than one of the more short sighted seem this is still too risky. But this is the minimum needed to be successful at the requested predation, so this is how it shall remain. A fair amount of bite inhibition regarding humans has been added, which seems to bleed over to their own kind, and that will more than likely be quite sufficient.
The establishment of family units and communal behavior was expected and seems to be more or less up to standards, although data on larger and less “related” groups is needed for proper evaluation. Cooperative hunting strategies seem to have been attempted but are neither universal in current specimens nor currently executed at a competent level. The age and inexperience of the current batch may be a factor on that, however, and again, more data is needed. A similar lack of data is present for the continuation of pair bonding and joint versus strictly maternal parenting strategies, and it will be interesting to learn what, if any, courtship behaviors the new genetic layers will present. Communal and reciprocative grooming has already leapt out as a common social bonding and appeasing behavior, possibly to an even greater extent than their classic fluffy forebears.
They are slower to mature, not hitting the early reproductive maturity until a full month after the non- carnivorous counterparts, with full mature growth taking between six to seven months. I have seen markers suggesting this may translate to a slightly longer lifespan, maybe up to 15 years under ideal conditions, but given that much like ideal lifespan in their counterparts it does not take human interventions or stressors into calculations I doubt any ever will.
from this base story -The Pack- because what we need is more fluffies bred to eat other fluffies. (1) by :Shadowfox
unofficial sequel of the email logs-
The Pack- Company email logs part 3 (Shadowfox)