Nummie Findah



The Nummie Findah (sometimes rendered/pronounced as "Nummie Findew,") or "Food Finder" in non-fluffspeak, is an essential part of any feral Fluffy herd. As the name suggests, a Nummie Findah's chief role is that of a herd's food forager (though it's also not abnormal for them to serve as de facto scouts as well.) Often this will take the form of the Nummie Findah travelling solo or working as part of group expeditions beyond whatever constitutes the borders of the herd's safe place to forage for food.

Oftentimes, this will demand they travel with little or no protection from a herd's Toughies, especially in smaller herds or those that have suffered especially high casualties from one source or another recently. This can be as much a result of circumstance as it can be simple preference, since small groups are less likely to be seen by predators and rivals.

Selection
Selecting which members of the herd will serve as a Nummie Findah is, like all other positions in the herd, determined by the Smarty. However, the Nummie Findah duty is one that will likely have some of the greatest impact on a herd, and so a Smarty must choose Fluffies for the job as wisely as they are able.

Typically, Nummie Findahs are stallions, though mares that are childless and without a special friend (or simply lacking any nursing foals and not being a soon-mummuh,) are commonly chosen for the task as well. Stallions are preferred however, as much for pragmatic concerns with stallions often being regarded as expendable as it is practical, since stallions tend to be larger and stronger, even if only marginally so, allowing them to carry and reach more food items.

A Nummie Findah must first and foremost be of reasonable intelligence by Fluffy standards. A Nummie Findah, unlike most members of the herd, will encounter daily challenges that will test their wits. These include following long, often convoluted paths between the safe place and food, avoiding predation, and safeguarding the location of the safe place (especially when dealing with humans or members of other herds who haven't tried to kill them right away,) and being able to identify safe food sources to prevent illness or poisoning.

Should a selected Fluffy fail at any of these tasks they could get hopelessly separated from the herd, killed, or lead dangerous predators to the herd resulting in its annihilation. And that's assuming the first or second don't happen first, as Nummie Findahs even in a well organized herd are the second most-likely to die or get separated while carrying out their duties.

Harvesting food, and transportation
Nummie Findahs in any environment will follow a relatively standard method of harvest and transportation. Foods are collected with the mouth. Using their teeth, any soft food that can be dismantled into smaller pieces or in to more manageable shapes is pulled/gnawed apart. Food is then loaded onto their back if possible, or simply tangled into the chest and side fluff if such isn't manageable or possible. Larger items will simply be dragged along by one or more foragers.

This allows Nummie Findahs to gather more food than could be gathered and carried in only their mouths.

Typical work day in several environments
A typical work day for a Nummie Findah begins early, usually just after sunrise more often than not. Once fed and prepared, the Nummie Findah either alone or in small groups depart from the herd's safe place in whatever direction they haven't checked recently. As Fluffies are omnivorous and often terrible at self-regulating their populations, the area immediately surrounding the safe place will have generally been stripped entirely of food. This means that Nummie Findahs must move far afield to find anything edible, though a few will always search around the immediate vicinity for any hidden or recently grown/dropped morsels.

City
Nummie Findahs from herds in or near cites will often head toward the less trafficked areas of the city such as back allies, and side streets. While at first this appears to be out of a desire to avoid humans, it's more often an attempt to simply avoid vehicular traffic. Much like other city based scavengers, Nummie Findahs look to Human waste and garbage whenever possible, as any that have survived any period of time know knocking over trash cans or picking around dumpsters can provide a large and to a fluffy, self-replenishing source of food. However humans tend to respond poorly to the messes these foragers make and respond with hostility.

Traps, gates, and other methods are often in place to prevent or kill Fluffies attempting to access the trash, but should a Nummie Findah be intelligent, strong or simply lucky enough they can find a feast for their herd.

Another food source in cites are seeking food directly from its human source. While far less likely to be successful compared to the former method, some will attempt to beg directly from the humans - seeking them out at food stands, restaurants, and parks. They will beg for scrapes that they can bring back to the safe place, and some of the more clever foragers may bring a young foal or two along to illicit sympathy while begging.

Rural & Suburban
Like city Nummie Findahs, Rural and Suburban Nummie Findahs rely primarily on humans for food, exploiting the same resources like trash cans and other unsecured waste receptacles as a prime food source. However unlike those in the city, rural and suburban Nummie Findahs have tremendous boons available to them as compared to their urban contemporaries, those in rural or suburban areas are significantly less likely to be killed by motorists - mostly due to a somewhat reduced number of cars to encounter rather than any action or lack thereof from drivers - and they can take advantage of much more bountiful and easily-accessed resources in the form of gardens (both private gardens and businesses centered on such activities,) and farmlands.

Though much more secure now, agricultural land still provides a major food source for feral herds. Far less processed and more abundant gardens and farms provide better nutrition than typical city fluffies can source, leading to much larger and healthier herds. However unlike the more liberal polices in urban areas, which generally prefer avoiding wholesale slaughter of ferals for a variety of reasons, rural areas purge herds at least somewhat regularly, and some rural areas go as far as to offer bounties on them. This is because Nummie Findahs are often a primary vector by which Fluffy-borne diseases are transmitted to humans and livestock via fecal contamination of food and fodder crops.

This causes Nummie Findahs in rural areas to avoid humans when possible, and they often spurn the practice of begging, though especially desperate foragers may still resort to it.

Forest or other untamed environments
For Fluffy herds living in forests or other such essentially-abandoned areas, the role of the Nummie Findah becomes more complicated, as new perils are in place. By necessity, Nummie Findahs in undeveloped areas tend to have far better memory and spatial awareness, as they often have to range over extremely long distances (for Fluffies,) through winding paths to find food; those who lack this capacity are even more likely to die on the job than a feral already is.

While human intrusion is not eliminated, it is no longer an omnipresent threat like it is for the other 2 categories. This is a double-edged sword for the Fluffies, as while they no longer suffer from human predation (barring occasional visits by personnel sent to cull the largest herds,) they also can't rely on human-sourced food. This means Nummie Findahs must find food sourced entirely from the natural environment and as a direct result, Nummie Findahs in forest herds show markedly higher intelligence (for fluffies,) having learned - often the hard way - what is safe to eat, what isn't, how to find edible roots and tubers, and so on.

Forest Nummie Findahs must also be on constant alert for non-human predators. Like city and rural fluffs, animals like feral cats or dogs, and many of the same birds are present, but now additional hazards such as venomous snakes, big cats, coyotes, foxes, larger birds of prey, bears, and more are likely to pose a threat and that's before environmental hazards are taken into account, such as thorny bushes, nests of stinging insects, sudden drops, and bodies of water, all of which are far more abundant and likely to be encountered in such places.

Another hazard far more often seen in forest/undeveloped region herds is that of inter-herd conflict. Herds in these areas are far more aggressive and territorial towards other fluffies, as truly safe places for a herd to nest are hard to come by. A flare up in inter-herd conflict can result in a Nummie Findah's job going from relatively difficult, to borderline impossible, without constant oversight and protection from a herd's toughies.

Another notable facet is Nummie Findahs in untamed areas will often regard humans as forces of nature to be avoided at all costs, a stark contrast to the behaviors seen in urban, suburban, and even rural populations, all of which will at least occasionally approach humans either out of necessity or to test their luck.