Zinc Hard Before Answering

>You've been thinking about going into the fluffy pony extermination business, there are a lot of ponies moving in lately.
>They've been destroying yards and getting into houses.
>But you don't have a taste for pure violence, and it makes the herds shit everywhere while scattering.
>Not good for suburban clientèle.
>You've heard that fluffy ponies tend to have elevated levels of hydrochloric acid in their stomach.
>Ostensibly it is to help them digest grasses and other roughage.
>Their tiny bodies may not have been designed with as much room for the extended cecum, or 'hindgut', of a standard horse.
>And they definitely wouldn't sell as well as pets if the foals tried to eat their dam's shit to absorb bacteria.
>It also goes partway toward explaining why they seem to crave high-starch food like pasta.
>This has given rise to an unusual extermination method used by forest rangers and other professionals.
>The ponies are fed small tablets of zinc, hidden within a treat.
>The zinc reacts with the HCl within their stomachs, producing zinc chloride and hydrogen gas.
>The ratio is two parts HCl to one part zinc, so even a little zinc leads to a bloated and complaining pony, if not an exploded stomach.
>However, the price of zinc is hovering around a dollar per pound.
>You decide it's time for a bit of SCIENCE to determine exactly how much zinc makes for a satisfactory kill rate, say 95%.

>A couple days later, your zinc arrives.
>Now, ponies.
>Luckily, people have been complaining about a herd of strays at a park near you, tearing up grass and ganging up on small wildlife.
>Like squirrels and ducks, mostly.
>You inveigle the ponies to abandon the park and come home with you using nothing more than your native wit and an open can of Beefaroni.
>"New fwiend give sketties!" and "Yay, new fwiend!" they shout.
>The ducks will certainly appreciate you luring the ponies off.
>Though they could have done it with their own native wits, but for a lack of Beefaroni and can openers.
>The herd is twelve ponies strong, if strong is the right word for a fluffy herd.
>Two of the mares are in advanced stages of pregnancy, being rolled along by a single attendant each.
>You've read that it's difficult to kill the heavily pregnant mares with zinc since their body has less HCl in the event of an accident during birth.
>You're going to give it a sporting try, though.

>You let the ponies into your backyard, where you've rigged up four makeshift, roofless pens out of chicken wire.
>Most of the ponies either back away warily or start wailing when they see the wire cages.
>Until you slop portions of Beefaroni into the first three cages.
>The fluffies crowd into the cages, pushing each other and gouging bits of bloody fluff out on the wire edges.
>You drop a wooden plank over the entrances of the cages, sealing the fluffies in.
>Then you pick up the now-unattended pregnant dams and deposit them into the fourth cage, manfully resisting the urge to slam dunk.
>A muddy green unicorn comes to the front of the second cage and addresses you, puffing its cheeks.
>"Wet fwuffies out! You no fwiend! Wet out ow smawty fwiend give owchies!"
>Adorable.
>You ignore it for now and head back inside to portion out some zinc.

>You estimate, based on diagrams you've seen online, that a full fluffy pony stomach is about the size of a soda can.
>So they probably secrete about 300mL of gastric juice per meal.
>If the pH level of their stomach acid is around 0.5, it likely contains at most 200mL of HCl in their digestive fluid.
>Shit nigger, that's still a lot of acid.
>Since the reaction puts as much hydrogen gas out as zinc is put in portion-wise, the high kinetic energy of the gas is what actually causes the stomach to rupture.
>Doesn't hydrogen gas expand from liquid form at a rate of over 800 times?.
>After all, it doesn't take anything close to 200mL of zinc to kill one pony.
>Uhhh... all this math is making your GED brain hurt.
>Fuck it, trial and error.
>Small portions at first.
>After all, you're trying to determine the bare minimum necessary here.
>Using a file, you start to scrape off zinc onto a scale.

>Having apportioned the zinc and tucked it into some candybars you had left over from Easter, you return to the yard with a notepad.
>Most ponies are eating grass and talking, though some are trying to hug each other through the wires.
>The chattering ponies all get quiet when you approach.
>The green unicorn comes forward again with another demand.
>"Wet fwuffies go or smawty fwiend give ouchies! No scawed of big meanie!"
>You pick him up and look him in the face.
>"Buddy, you've got the wrong idea. I'm your bro. Here, I brought you treats!"
>The green unicorn looks at you dazedly and replies, "Huh... wha? Buddy? You give foodies fow fwuffy?"
>You set him down in the cage and hand-feed him a piece of a Snickers.
>It's the piece you put the least zinc in.
>He licks it gingerly to check the taste, then gobbles it from your hand.
>"Dis good! Give mow!"
>"Not yet, buddy."
>"Big meanie give mow foodies to Buddy! Give!"
>Hah, he thinks his name is Buddy.
>He puffs out his cheeks and stamps his soft hooves, but when he opens his mouth to issue another demand, he stops.
>"Tummy feew wawm and fuww... tummy huwt!"
>The other fluffies in cage two crowd around him anxiously.
>"Smawty huwt? Smawty fwiend need hugs?" they say as they start to hug him.
>One is squeezing around his midsection...

>"Uuuu! Buddy tummy huwt mow! Need make poopies!" the unicorn cries.
>Before the ponies hugging him can let go, the unicorn lets off several small farts as he voids his bowels onto one of them.
>The pony starts whining, "Smawty fwiend no make poopies on fwuffy! Smawty mean!"
>Buddy just responds with an "Uuuu... tummy stiww hot and huwty... mow poopies!"
>Looks like the zinc is still reacting.
>He shrieks as an acidic load of undigested grass and Beefaroni from his stomach and small intestine is pushed out with leaking, bubbling sounds.
>Finally empty of shit, he slumps down as the gas continues to escape from him in the form of periodic flatulence.
>'Snickers', indeed.
>So with just a little zinc, it's possible to force out the contents of a pony's alimentary tract before it can digest them.
>Meaning it can be an effective way to expel poisons if the pony is caught right after eating them.
>You write down the amount for future reference.
>Lavoisier would be proud.

>Progress marches on, though.
>It's time to refocus on your original goal.
>You pick up the untested pony from cage two that's not covered in shit.
>You elect to skip one tier and feed him a candy bar with twice as much zinc as the one you gave Buddy.
>That said, it still only amounts to less than a gram.
>The hungry pony eagerly accepts it once he smells the sweet chocolate.
>You set him back down in cage two.
>It doesn't take long until he's visibly swollen and complaining loudly of "tummy owchies".
>The other ponies crowd him or clamber on the wire fences again.
>The pony's remark is shortly followed by the loudest fart you've ever heard, like a car backfiring, as the gas escapes suddenly.
>All the ponies start crying "Big noise!" and "Scawy!"
>One pony that was clinging to the wire, however, is screaming in pain.
>As you walk over to look at him, you notice that where one eye should be there's a fibrous brownish-green lump oozing white fluid.
>God damn, that pony just shat a grassy pellet with enough force to rupture this one's eyeball.

>Welp, it's not like you were trying to keep them alive and whole.
>Starting with the poo-cyclops, you begin force-feeding the rest of the ponies with increasing doses of zinc.
>Over a gram by mass now.
>One by one, they start to swell up and whine.
>"Tummy hot!" "Why poopies no come?" "Pwease hewp fwuffy!"
>Poo-cyclops himself seems to balloon and stay there, immobile like a pregnant dam.
>You guess that his sphincters are just barely holding on and his body instinctively won't release them to prevent an explosive escape.
>He had the level one above the projectile shitter; you mark it as "useless unless a beach ball is needed".
>The others aren't as lucky.
>The whine becomes a keening wail in some of the ponies as the pain in their stomachs becomes acute.
>The highest candy-tier pops first, as his stomach splits completely open and the gas, along with his internal organs, escapes his body.
>The ones between him and Poo-cyclops start emitting muffled pops as the gas tears open their stomachs but leaves the body cavity intact.
>They begin burping and shitting bloody pre-digested food as the sphincters at both ends of the stomach release.
>This is... messy as fuck.
>Still not good for suburban clientèle.

>Wait, Poo-Cyclops has stopped flailing and whining.
>He's actually... gasping and turning... bluish?
>The hyperinflated stomach must be cutting off his respiration.
>As you watch, he passes out.
>After a few more minutes you approach, hopeful that a bloodless kill might still be forthcoming.
>As you do, he gives one last shiver and a load of bloody stool bursts out of his bottom and splatters against the fence behind him.
>Looks like his anal sphincter loosened slightly when he died of asphyxiation, and the force of the escaping gas pulped his intestines.
>You cross out the beach ball note.
>So the only thing you've discovered is how to make them violently explode into clouds of gore.
>Well, that and a practical medical application that can be used to save pony lives.
>But who gives a shit about that?.
>Hah, 'gives a shit'.
>You're so funny.

>Now, what to do with these dams?
>They got the biggest doses and still display nothing more than some whimpering.
>"Why fwiends sweepin'?" "Why boo-boo juice?"
>Buddy and the crap-cannon are still alive as well, though too tired to move.
>Ehhhhh... failed experiments depress you.
>You turn your back on them and head inside.
>Of course, even a step backwards is progress, from a scientific sense.
>You decide to keep them in the cages.
>After all, those dams are going to make you a new test group any day now!