Regarding yukkuri ideal nutrition

Okay I searched all over regarding this topic but to no avail.

While yukkuris do not have a set canon of any sort, there are universal ideas that are shared in all head canons. Now I assume there are those more widely read about this or at least have a more "realistic" take in just how much food does a yukkuri eat to at least feel satisfied?

Does it eat (there are some unverifiable sources on the internet) half of its weight like humans per month?

Because if so that would mean it would be eating about 1.6% to 2% of its weight every day so a 3 kg yu would be eating around 60 grams of food to get by for the day. So does this make sense to you guys?

I know that yukkuri voraciousness tends to be portrayed quite a lot in most works but they do show that after a huge meal, huge poop is to be *immediately* expected, so that sort of answers why yus can eat more than what they should actually consume. So this sort of explains how a creature so weak can actually survive despite it being designed like a walking death flag as it can actually just subsist on what little scraps it can scrounge near its nest.

Now assuming that is the case, food shortages in yukkuri communities are directly caused by their greed and overconsumption after all assuming all yus average 3 kilos, 60 grams per yu is very easy to attain considering they can handle eating spoiled and even rotting food.

and they can eat anything it seems, dry leaves, bark, mulch, grass . . . Another factor in food shortages is that Yus really cant travel far so once a group hits a certain size it means certain doom because they can't go far enough to find food in a day

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0961953411006489

Assuming yus minimize being picky eaters the dry leaves, twigs and whathaveyous are supposedly 8 tons per year per hectare in a planted environment like a natural park.

8,000,000 grams / (1.5 kg of food X 12 mths/year) = 444,444.44 yus per hectare if they limit themselves purely on dry leaves and twigs if they can get enough nutrition from 60 grams of dry leaves per day.

Now http://blog.outdoorherbivore.com/food-301/nutrient-loss-in-dried-foods/ states that about 80% of vitamin c is lost to drying so assuming that the same can be said about leaves drying but avoiding total relevant nutrient decomposition, yu population can reach 88,888.88 individuals per hectare (assuming there are enough living spaces) barring non-yu predation or human interference or sheer bad luck induced by natural stupidity.

That would be fine but you also have to consider the yukkuri's teeth
Twigs are generally too hard for them to chew on, and leaves can be eaten only by adults, as baby and child yukkuri are still too weak
Baby yukkuri also need to eat more often (like any baby animal, really) and in equal quantity each time, so parents need to get more than what they would need based on those sources
Intuitively I'd say that a large forest can sustain about 1/3 of your estimate, assuming a diet of nothing but leaves
Speaking of leaves, what about forests of conifers (like you see in the medirerranean area), where trees have needle-like leaves? Would those places be suitable for yukkuri living?

There is no real canon about it since it really only gets used as an abyuse plot device in most cases.

In the wild, they supposedly eat soft vegetation and insects. How they manage to actually catch insects with their notoriously terrible agility is beyond me. They aren't smart enough to use traps or bait (except for rare types). Soft vegetation probably is the bulk of their diet considering their waste is practically ready made fertilizer. Actual hunting animals are pretty voracious about eating, but actually getting a successful hunt is another story.

City yukkuri canon seems to have settled on some sort of pellet based food. What it tastes like it up to the story. Emulating cat/dog food never really made sense given their herbivore tendencies soft teeth. They probably could live off of leftovers.

exitstrategy said:

There is no real canon about it since it really only gets used as an abyuse plot device in most cases.

In the wild, they supposedly eat soft vegetation and insects. How they manage to actually catch insects with their notoriously terrible agility is beyond me. They aren't smart enough to use traps or bait (except for rare types). Soft vegetation probably is the bulk of their diet considering their waste is practically ready made fertilizer. Actual hunting animals are pretty voracious about eating, but actually getting a successful hunt is another story.

City yukkuri canon seems to have settled on some sort of pellet based food. What it tastes like it up to the story. Emulating cat/dog food never really made sense given their herbivore tendencies soft teeth. They probably could live off of leftovers.

They are often shown to be able to jump their own height so they are pretty agile.
http://oyp.yunyah.com/posts/33244?tags=biology
Add also the fact that a yukkuri finishing move is often that huge jump to squish their opponent, they do not lack agility but their small size and slowness make this agility unimpressive.

With a little luck and some intelligence they can apparently hunt small mammals -_- so small animals can be easily caught as well, I suppose. http://oyp.yunyah.com/posts/5246?tags=rabbit

Assuming that lower grade yukkuri pet food are made of the most numerous and readily available yus like all the abuse stories like to show, they are probably slightly soft bean paste pellets/briquettes.

EasyV said:

That would be fine but you also have to consider the yukkuri's teeth
Twigs are generally too hard for them to chew on, and leaves can be eaten only by adults, as baby and child yukkuri are still too weak
Baby yukkuri also need to eat more often (like any baby animal, really) and in equal quantity each time, so parents need to get more than what they would need based on those sources
Intuitively I'd say that a large forest can sustain about 1/3 of your estimate, assuming a diet of nothing but leaves
Speaking of leaves, what about forests of conifers (like you see in the medirerranean area), where trees have needle-like leaves? Would those places be suitable for yukkuri living?

Large forest? What is your definition of large? A hectare?

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Will add more later.

exitstrategy said:

There is no real canon about it since it really only gets used as an abyuse plot device in most cases.

In the wild, they supposedly eat soft vegetation and insects. How they manage to actually catch insects with their notoriously terrible agility is beyond me. They aren't smart enough to use traps or bait (except for rare types). Soft vegetation probably is the bulk of their diet considering their waste is practically ready made fertilizer. Actual hunting animals are pretty voracious about eating, but actually getting a successful hunt is another story.

City yukkuri canon seems to have settled on some sort of pellet based food. What it tastes like it up to the story. Emulating cat/dog food never really made sense given their herbivore tendencies soft teeth. They probably could live off of leftovers.

Don't discount yukkuri just because all ya read is stories that always end in them dying miserably of starvation. Some writers have actually made, and shown, some really creative ways that yukkuri survive, such as making a fly catcher out of a twig and some cobweb.

http://yukkuri.shii.org/posts/36713?pool_id=565

In another story, they learned how to breed pill bugs for food, feeding them their own poop and pee.

http://yukkuri.shii.org/posts/66488

There's also stories of yukkuri running their own farms.

http://yukkuri.shii.org/posts/30232?pool_id=431

But it was mostly used for another excuse to screw them.

But, it's not always hopeless.

http://yukkuri.shii.org/posts/11941

(I can't find the other one, unfortunately)

(edit: found)

http://yukkuri.shii.org/posts/8380

So, they're more-than capable, it just depends on if the author decides to let them actually, ya know, live.

Canttakeiteasy said:

Large forest? What is your definition of large? A hectare?

A hectare is a square with a side of 100m, that doesn't even cover a single clan (where a clan is assumed to be made of 20 families of 2 parents and 2 children each)
Given how yukkuri have the strength to travel mountain roads and other adverse enviroments just to reach the fabled easy city, I'd say a hectare is the area they cover daily when going hunting

EasyV said:

A hectare is a square with a side of 100m, that doesn't even cover a single clan (where a clan is assumed to be made of 20 families of 2 parents and 2 children each)
Given how yukkuri have the strength to travel mountain roads and other adverse enviroments just to reach the fabled easy city, I'd say a hectare is the area they cover daily when going hunting

This how big a hectare is supposedly (at least close to it):

https://www.kelownanow.com/galavanting/news/Tourist_Information/14/07/17/How_Big_Is_A_Hectare_A_Better_Way_to_Visualize_The_Size/

Now imagine that brimming with trees and bushes, creating various natural nooks and crannies for yukkuri to live in (some admittedly have to be dug out but still). The amount of flora alone would be more than sufficient for a clan of probably 50,000 yukkuri assuming all plants are edible.

Now imagine the large number of insects and other animals in a forest and you'll see that without predation or their own insane conflicts yukkuri (if real) would thrive in a hectare of woodland alone if they can control their greed.

Those examples you linked are for empty fields, now let's imagine a forest:

A forest might have many places that could work as a house, but are they really suitable?
The most trivial reason for an unsuitable place for yukkuri is that it's too small
People (at least in Japan) have agreed that adult yukkuri are on average as big as a basketball
Given that a family is made of two adults and at least two other children, a proper yukkuri home needs to be big enough to house about four basketballs
That alone removes a part of the available space
Another reason is, can yukkuri really live there in the first place?
They might have found a big enough house, but then a fox or a wolf comes and makes that its home
Yukkuri can deal with some bugs and some herbivores, but the rest are too strong for them
Only few yukkuri can actually build homes (like how not every monkey can use the same tool), and not every piece of ground can be dug out (there's a river or rocks), so that removes a number of yukkuri too
Still about houses, not every tree makes a natural shelter with its root, and many forest bushes actually have thorns, making them poor choices for houses

There's more to it than just living spaces, but we're getting off topic really fast, and I don't really want to write an essay on this
A hectare can probably sustain more than one clan, but 50000 is too much to be sustainable regardless on the yukkuri's greed

EasyV said:

Those examples you linked are for empty fields, now let's imagine a forest:

A forest might have many places that could work as a house, but are they really suitable?
The most trivial reason for an unsuitable place for yukkuri is that it's too small
People (at least in Japan) have agreed that adult yukkuri are on average as big as a basketball
Given that a family is made of two adults and at least two other children, a proper yukkuri home needs to be big enough to house about four basketballs
That alone removes a part of the available space
Another reason is, can yukkuri really live there in the first place?
They might have found a big enough house, but then a fox or a wolf comes and makes that its home
Yukkuri can deal with some bugs and some herbivores, but the rest are too strong for them
Only few yukkuri can actually build homes (like how not every monkey can use the same tool), and not every piece of ground can be dug out (there's a river or rocks), so that removes a number of yukkuri too
Still about houses, not every tree makes a natural shelter with its root, and many forest bushes actually have thorns, making them poor choices for houses

There's more to it than just living spaces, but we're getting off topic really fast, and I don't really want to write an essay on this
A hectare can probably sustain more than one clan, but 50000 is too much to be sustainable regardless on the yukkuri's greed

Living places have always been the problem with any conceivable yu-topia. Some places are "easier" than others and yus often fight over that (at least most of the shitheads and scum do) be it because of access to resources, both luxuries and necessities.

Actually all yukkuri probably can use simple tools like shovels and knives, it is just that some are too stupid or too lazy or too weak to actually make good use of them. But that is not the point I am trying to make about a hectare of land being sufficient, I did say NO PREDATION or their insane conflicts so in an idyllic peaceful society controlled by a Dosuyukkuri with an iron fist they probably would not mind having their easy places so close to each other (imagine accessible parts of the treeline used as housing, hovels from fallen stumps and natural root and a underground cave system or tunnel below a solid non-porous rock ceiling). Imagine a yukkuri version of a termite mound, if you can wrap your imagination around that, now imagine it strategically positioned in a hectare of land where resources are available.

And roots of trees can get pretty big with enough spaces for several families of 4 basketball sized yus https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2449/3615469800_27880d3a16_b.jpg

Now the 50,000 number is just an asspull using the theory that I cobble together using that idea that a hectare of land produces 8 tons of dry plant biomass a year and the theory that yukkuri consume food about 50% of their body weight a month at minimum. Granting that there probably would be no stories talking about such a dense population of yukkuri in such a small area in a natural environment and the likelihood of that happening is near improbable considering the nature of yukkuris, the unlikelihood of a confluence of factors to support such a large population and the fact that there would be too many animals that could not resist the easy meal a yukkuri would become.

(the short version of what I am trying to say is 50,000 yukkuris in a hectare may be possible in a perfect world setting where no challenge to their peaceful existence exists)

Canttakeiteasy said:

They are often shown to be able to jump their own height so they are pretty agile.

Holdovers from when they could fly.

It's not just greed but also food preference. If they are starving then they'll eat the unappetizing dry tree leaves and the barks and sticks as those are not easy to chew. So most of the time it's limited to soft vegetation like flower petals and flower leaves and grass. As for how they got insects those are either dead bugs or hard to escape bugs like caterpillar and worms, occasionally they are shown to get butterflies.

regarding their size . . . yes the full size adult is a basketball in size but they seem to be much smaller when they strike out on their own and start breeding.

I think yukkuri nutrition has evolved quite a bit form when they were being used to process waste (see: yukkuris saved the world). We like to think of them as normal animals, but canonically they've been able to eat anything really. Any organic matte, really. They just can't feel easy and die easily if they don't eat "normal" foods and hot stuff is out of the question (Except for meiling). They like "normal" food the best, especially those things that are soft and easy to chew like caterpillars, berries and soft grasses + flowers.

A yukkuri adult is canonically, about the size of a head, so basketball-sized or a bit larger. Being filled with anko, it's fairly dense. I'd say it weighs about 30~lbs and is agile enough to "ram" things by compressing its body and launching itself. So being able to jump to at least human waist height (2-3x its body height) is also not unusual. I always say imagine throwing a medicine ball at someone, and that's the kind of force you're dealing with. Certainly enough to scare away some smaller predators if they're not desperate enough.

Given how dense yukkuri communities are (we often see multiple families in a park), I'd venture to say maybe 10,000 in a hectare would be about right, given little to no competition for resources. Given the tendency for gluttany in yukkuris, any more seems like it would outstrip the sustainability of the area and a hectare isn't all that big.

Given the tendency for gluttany in yukkuris, any more seems like it would outstrip the sustainability of the area and a hectare isn't all that big

yes this right here.

OK If you "free range" a hog, It needs to be in a forest with with lots and lots of hardwoods, like oak and chestnut, so there will be enough food. At one time in the southeastern USA you could put 10 hogs in a square acre. Im pretty sure hogs will eat more than Yukkuris. That is ideal forest terrain which would provide for them to have more cover. An open field would provide more bugs and blooming plants as well as grass. Since Yus can eat Grass and mix it up with bugs and such I would think that open field would provide more food or them.

captperv said:
An open field would provide more bugs and blooming plants as well as grass. Since Yus can eat Grass and mix it up with bugs and such I would think that open field would provide more food or them.

Easy food, no doubt.

A sustainable food source? No.

A wooded land would provide them with so much variety of food (both easy to eat and uneasy to eat but can be stored for longer periods of time) and tools for survival such as medicines, construction materials and other whathaveyous.

The best would obviously be hardwood forest on the edge of a field. All the cover and tree nuts with all the variety of an over grown field.

Canttakeiteasy said:

Easy food, no doubt.

A sustainable food source? No.

A wooded land would provide them with so much variety of food (both easy to eat and uneasy to eat but can be stored for longer periods of time) and tools for survival such as medicines, construction materials and other whathaveyous.

I think given the chance and sufficient creativity from the writer, a yukkuri could survive anywhere. Marisas tend to have enough imagination and ingenuity to create the tools, and even learn how to harvest. Reimus are good at the homefront, and on certain occasions, make great gatherers. Yukkuri are like small humans -- given the chance, they're pretty adaptive. I've always thought that if they started appearing around where I live, they'd actually wind up becoming water-proof (or at least hella water resistant), since I live in a tropical climate (and, incidentally, I'd think after a few generations, yukkuri would start to 'darken' from sun exposure). I'd also like to think, due to the humidity, they'd become far-more mold-resistant (or some kind of movement to make them so, as mold is unhealthy for humans, too)

Hitosura said:

I've always thought that if they started appearing around where I live, they'd actually wind up becoming water-proof (or at least hella water resistant), since I live in a tropical climate (and, incidentally, I'd think after a few generations, yukkuri would start to 'darken' from sun exposure). I'd also like to think, due to the humidity, they'd become far-more mold-resistant (or some kind of movement to make them so, as mold is unhealthy for humans, too)

Water resistant maybe for the land types, that I can see. As current consensus shows current yus tend to be unbelievably fragile when a real life manjuu is fairly hard to dissolve in water or even tear by light friction contrary to some of the ridiculous abyuse stories out there.

Canttakeiteasy said:

Water resistant maybe for the land types, that I can see. As current consensus shows current yus tend to be unbelievably fragile when a real life manjuu is fairly hard to dissolve in water or even tear by light friction contrary to some of the ridiculous abyuse stories out there.

I know. But it's for purposes of making them seem weak, and an excuse to have them scream in pain and terror. It's the same thing with winter -- I'm in the consensus that yukkuri go into hibernation during winter, being that it'd be near-impossible for yukkuri to store up enough food to survive 2-4 months in a cave. Winter would be incredibly hard for them to hunt and gather in. They'd probably just live like bears -- crawl into their little caves and go to sleep, then while in that small and (basically) refrigerated cave, their paste would near-solidify into a slow churn. They could wake up once in a while to just have something to eat, but the species would have to evolve some method of surviving winter, or else they'd have been simply wiped out a long time ago.