Soooo Tree Hugger is not exactly the best mom LMAO  
 
When it came to what her children needed, she genuinely had no idea, and didn’t take too much effort to learn. As long as she loved them, fed them, and gave them a roof over their head they’d be fine, right? Wrong.  
 
Rye was an earth pony, generally the easiest of the types to raise. He didn’t have magic or wings so he’s eaaasy! Though when new races were thrown into the mix, Tree Hugger just attempted to give them the earth pony treatment, and Rye caught onto this. Being the eldest, he studied up on raising different types of foals and how to encourage their natural growth. He learned how to preen his sisters’ wings and took them to schools where they learned to fly. He learned how to help Sleepy with his magical growth, and enrolled him in Twilight’s School of Magic; which was very difficult seeing as how Sleepy has narcolepsy.  
 
Now when Crow came along, Rye thought he had it figured out from there; encourage him to sleep upside down during the daytime, make sure he gets plenty of meat and/or veggies when his teeth grow in, send him to a night time flight school, y’know- all that good stuff. But when his teeth did grow in, and when Rye tried to feed him, Crow would eat it but would still cry. In a panic, he asked his mother what kind of bat pony Crow’s dad was and she basically said “uhh idk lololol”  
 
Back to researching, Rye studied up quickly on different bat pony species. Not omnivorous, not carnivorous, not herbivorous- then what? There was one last type, the rarest species of bat pony; the vampire bat pony, which are hematophages, creatures that live off blood. Usually vampire bat pony foals would drink their parents blood to survive, but with no father and the trust lost from his usually high af mother, Rye took it upon himself to let Crow feed off of him to see if that would work.  
 
Turns out it did! It all seemed so natural, the little colt digging his wing thumbs into Rye’s chest enough to cling to him as he bit into Rye’s neck to feed. It felt like a big rush of relief, finally fixing an issue he was afraid he couldn’t resolve before it was too late. Everyone else was relieved too, and Crow continued to grow up healthy thanks to his big brother. This event is also how Rye earned his mark.