At what age can a colt erm you know...... perform.

M

mandy4727

Well-Known Member
Joined
14 November 2005
Messages
1,388
Location
Lancashire
Visit site
My 3 year old is going out with a mare and foal tomorrow. The mare has been dropping a bit of weight despite being fed loads and my field has plenty of grass. The mare if a bit fed up of the colt and think she will be glad he has something to play with. If there is squabling they will be taken apart (mine and the mare and foal I mean). However, as i said the foal is a colt and he is 4 months old. It will only be until then come in for winter (nov time maybe earlier if weather bad) but wondered what the danger was of him doing any damage. I have seen him try to mount his mum on several occasions with his "bits" out!!!
 
Colts do play rough but baby play-mounting mum is quite common and I think fillies do it too though could be wrong. I don't think a colt is sexually mature until about 12 - 18 months so you should be ok til the spring.
 
A yearling colt I know covered 4 mares and all mares had 4 healthy foals .

Soo......
wink.gif
 

My yearling colt was displaying very stallion like behaviour with my mare. Luckily I wasn't too worried as the mare was 14.2hh or so & the colt was 36 inches
grin.gif


I did get him gelded as soon as I noticed him getting territorial & erm, frustrated.....
blush.gif
grin.gif
 
The father of my foals ran with my mares from 9 months old until he was 4 years old. He covered them when he was 2 years old, so although they can cover at a far younger age, I find they tend not to at a young age if they are raised with the mares. Rarely do colts cover mares before they are yearlings even though some are perfectly capable of it, probably due to normal mares cycles finishing in November at the latest. The little colt in your field shouldn't become active until well into next summer, if then, generally it will be the following spring as a 2 year old.

Putting my mares in with 4 month old colt wouldn't be of the slightest concern to me. I have 5 grown mares living with 2 yearling colts right now and because these colts have grown up with these mares I very much doubt they would cover the mares at this stage as they are too inferior within the herd right now. My plan right now is that both colts will probably be cut in September, although if one were to breed my broodmare then I wouldn't be bothered at all as the little guy has beautiful foundation QH bloodlines .. and he is a really well marked grulla.
smile.gif
 
I remember reading in H&H the famous show jumping pony Mr Polo's sire was also is brother. Mother and son were left in the field when he covered her (don't know how old he was) and the result was a gold medal winning pony!
 
From about 8-12 months. It is normal for young horses to mount there mothers, pratice for later on in life for dominance and breeding.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top