>>42255833
i mean on the legit side?
at the least what we know from the show is they need to steal the love from other creatures to survive and can optionally supplement their diets with solid foods (if you want to use skittlebug canon)
off the top of my head, headcanon
changelings require other creatures males (ponies usually) to procreate being as the majority of the drones in their hive are female much like a bee hive
with a very small hand full of actual changeling males at any one time in the hive for the sake of procreation
for a fact they do capture and cocoon ponies to extract love from them over time
more of a headcanon thing involved with it would be bugs using their brainwashing mind control magic to warp the dreams of captured ponies to extract more love from them
theres a lot of headcanon to dig through if you go through the past /bug/ threads