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Grubhogs, Buzzboys and Newtwives
🕑 Added 2023-01-06 19:03:34 +0000 UTCI have a nasty cold and can't do much except lay around looking sad, so I had a few minutes to think about grubhog husbandry! You know, instead of nothing!
Grubhogs can be hunted in the wild but are more likely to give better meat if intentionally farmed. "Domestic" grubhogs tend to be fatter, larger and more nutritious than their feral counterparts, reaching ideal slaughter weight within about six months as opposed to a year. A large, relatively inland city like Newtopia would have to ship grubhog meat in from a ranch, as the worms can only thrive in wet mud near wide swaths of rainforest.
Ornery and voracious though they are, grubhogs are only awake for eight or nine hours a day. A diurnal species, they emerge from the mud at dawn and begin to eat anything that they can fit in their mouths. The job of the rancher is to force the grubhogs from their safe sleeping patch into the rainforest, where the worms can forage and carouse until they exhaust themselves. The rancher must also be prepared to frighten/fight predators, as it's not only amphibians who find grubhogs delicious. At the end of the feeding period, the rancher drives the worms back to their sleeping patch: a muddy creek bed where the worms can burrow and sleep until the next sunrise. All of these factors must be in evidence; you can't just keep a grubhog herd in a pen next to your home. "Domestic" grubhogs are an oxymoron, as they will always be more or less wild.
It's also the rancher's prerogative to chose a few grubhogs to pupate and breed. The picks of the herd will cocoon themselves and stay that way for the last few months of their lives. During this time it behooves the rancher to be more hands-on, keeping the cocoons in a relatively dry shed where predators cannot find them. On the eve of hatching, a wise rancher relocates the pupae to the rainforest, as the emergent adults will be ready to wreak havoc. Adult grubhogs are colloquially called big bad beetle boars: they vaguely resemble rhinoceros beetles, are mostly armor, and are the size of a small car. The beetle boars will fight and mate with characteristic brutality, leaving nothing alive but the resulting fertilized eggs (and hopefully the rancher). The rancher then collects the eggs and plants them in the shed until they hatch, whereupon the young grubhogs can be introduced to the herd.
Also I improved upon Ace's design a little. I'm fighting every instinct I have to make him the goodest boy. And no, Olivia, we can't just keep one of the little cute grubhogs for a while. Don't touch it. No, don't hug it! Go bother your kids!
Comments
Must Love Frogs
Ludu gets it!
Jose Rosa
He isn't purring. He is buzzing to assert dominance over territory. The bits of kill-a-moth are not gifts for the newt hive. They are war trophies. He doesn't gleefully enjoy Alena' avocado strips while she reads to him.... OK maybe a little.
Nutjob
The best friends you can have are the ones that think they're terrible assholes.
Must Love Frogs
I don't want Ace to become a big puppy. I want him to stay lean and mean. But I also think he's kind of...sweet.
Nutjob
Imagine the big ranch dogs that are working animals that, over time, get accustomed to the family and start moving inside and tolerating the kids hanging off him. And then everyone wakes up to a ruckus in the middle of the night, and all you find is a mildly battered, slightly bloodied farm dog snoozing on the porch, surrounded by assorted bits of six or seven wolves strewn about.
Joe Pontillo
🤣 ...only a mother could love...
Jonathan
I'm sorry you're feeling sick, Froggie. I hope you heal up ASAP. Now pardon the dumb question, as I just got home from work, but what does 'goodest boy' mean in regards to Ace?
Must Love Frogs
“Crazy thing is…it's true, all of it, the newts, the hornet, it's all true.”
Nutjob
You can't fight it, Kae. Ace IS the Goodest Boy, in a proper Working Wasp ranching way. No floofy Pomeranian Bumblebee is he. No slippers fetched or frizbees caught. But I'm sure he's buzzed up to the kitchen window, delivering Olivia a mud-caked, torn-clothes Marcy dangling sheepishly from his mandables And the countless Things That Bump In The Night that the family never knew about, because at 2 am Ace just rustled his wings and GLARED out into the shadows until they decided 'I should go somewhere else'
