(Twilight's dialogue is in the purple box at the start.)
Pony farms don't consist of just the ponies. When a pony owns a very large area of farmland, they can't use it every year, they have to let it lie fallow. And whadaya know, that means a whole lot of empty land, perfect for renting out to cattle and sheep! Their milk and wool turns extra profit (minus the 70% kickback to the tenants), and the ponies get a mini-village full of friends!
…Nah, the tenants tend to keep to themselves.
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Call me the crossover junkie, because Them's Fightin' Herds is my new fix. I had put up a pol on DA, asking about people's opinions on the matter of adding those characters. I had very little in the way of answers on it, but of the two who did answer, neither was actually against it.
So there you go, it's locked in, and I've basically decided in my head that this is not a serious project. Still, I do have a plan for making sure I can integrate the world of Them's Fightin' Herds into Ponies without the hand-wave of "alternate universe".
Why did I do a double-length post this time? Honestly, I have no idea, I just wanted to see if I could do it at a reasonable length of time.