The early release of the Meeroo Manual was quite an interesting read and I really appreciate getting to look at it ahead of time. One thing that particularly stood out was that meeroos will only breed for 60 days. "An Elderly Meeroo™ is a Meeroo™ that is 60 days or older. Their internal seasons remain active until a Meeroo™ enters Elderly status at 60 days. It will never attempt a breed and it’s cycle will never change after it has reached the age of infertility."
I'm not complaining about this, so don't think that I am. But compared to the other breedables this is an extremely short amount of time. I think it puts the maturity level into prespective. With the original 10 day maturity rate plus waiting out cycles, it could be between 10-15 days for someone to get their first baby. That could mean up to a 1/4 of your breeding time would be gone by the time you got your first baby. If it took 10 days for them to reach 100% fertility again, that would mean that at the most you would only get 4 babies out of your meeroo. For those of us who have done other breedables before, only 4 offspring (who you cannot turn around and inbreed to make trait lines stronger) would hardly seem like a wise investment. I mean, who buys a horse over 60 days old or a cat or bunny with only 6 spans left? No one because they will not return the investment.
Don't misconstrue my words to think this is just about money. There are a lot more to meeroos than that. The fact that you can keep your elderly meeroo forever, gaining regard and helping you in the rest of your game is a huge draw for keeping those meeroos who don't breed. However, it is a breedable, and a breedable inherantly has a secondary market that needs to be taken into account. I know that most of us, even those that breed for enjoyment and not money, would like for our critters to at least pay for their own food if nothing else since real money is involved in the upkeep.
This has turned into a long ramble when it wasn't supposed to. My whole point has been that after all the fallout from lowering the breeding maturity from 10 days to 5, I wonder how many people still would want it at 10 days knowing they only have 60 breeding days. I think that now that we know the whole story, a lower maturity age is much more reasonable.