Decisions, decisions. To geld or not to geld. Opinions.

[Enfys]

Please see my post in Lounge re altering Zeus.

Castration booked, am having 2nd, and 3rd thoughts. I would appreciate your input greatly, chatting with hubby is getting me nowhere.

 

[Tia]

I was in exactly the same situation as you earlier this year. There was no real reason to geld my stallion either. He had bred two of my mares and the foals have turned out delightful.

So many people said to me that I should not geld him. He has very rare bloodlines so they felt it was wrong to even consider gelding him.....however, I have a business to run and what I found was that I had to consider which fields he could go in - I couldn't have him share a fenceline with any boarding fillies/mares, which then immediately ruled out 2 fields; well at the time I only had 4 fields so this was a bit of an issue to me.

The other issue for me was that he could not run with my geldings so he always had to live with the mares and every time they came into season it was always a pain in the butt having to move out the mares not being bred.

I also wanted to give my 11 year old daughter the opportunity to do whatever she likes with him, which she has always done on our property but she wouldn't be allowed to show him as an entire for a number of years.

Anyway, I went through having him gelded this Spring much to the disgust of others particularly after they saw the foals he threw. In my mind though, I have a filly out of him now who has even better bloodlines than he has - lines of amazing horses on both her top line AND her bottom line. This is the main reason I decided not to sell her in the end as I still have the rare bloodline but not the hassle of having a stallion here.

It's your decision and I don't think anyone can make it for you. I am sure your guy is very similar to my guy and will be exactly the same as a gelding as he was as a stallion. I did wonder whether I had done the right thing for a while and although I wouldn't say I ever regretted it, I did have misgivings.......right up to the moment this palomino foal was born a couple of months ago. Now I have absolutely no misgivings and I believe it was the right thing to do.

 

[Enfys]

Thanks Tia, are you keeping Breeze for yourself now then?

I feel a slightly embarrassing phonecall to my Vet coming up.

Sorry, but I have changed my mind

I was so certain it was the right way to go when I called last week to arrange it

 

[Tia]

Yes I'll keep Breeze for the time-being until I decide where I am going with this breeding lark. I do have a couple of colts here that I could use to breed her when she is old enough, however I'm not sure if I can be bothered with going back to restricted fields again, so these colts will likely be gelded next Spring as yearlings. I also don't think their bloodlines, although good, are really good enough to compliment her stunning lines. I may just have her bred by someone else's stallion if I choose to go down that line.

 

[Guinness]

I would say if you arent 100% then dont do it. We had booked to have one of our colts at work castrated, the day the vet was coming my boss cancelled it and that afternoon someone rang wanting a colt to buy. Funny how things turn out!

 

[htobago]

Normally, I would be asking "Is he a truly outstanding individual - not just good but really exceptional, with excellent conformation, breed type, movement, presence, etc.? And does he have a great pedigree to back this up?"

And I'd be saying if not, geld him. There are plenty of great stallions, and far too many merely 'OK' stallions. Very, very few colts, IMO, are genuinely 'too good to geld'.

But your situation is rather different, as you are only using him on your own mares, you have plenty of space and facilities for a stallion, and you will have a chance to assess his foals fairly soon...so apart from the issue of your daughter riding him, there seems to be no real problem with keeping him entire a bit longer, until you can judge his value as a sire.

So IMO it really comes down to how important the riding aspect is for you. If there are other horses for your daughter to ride in competition, etc., and waiting another year or so to ride this one would be no great hardship for her, then maybe you could give him a temporary reprieve until you see what his foals are like?

Another option would be to have his semen collected and frozen, so you could geld him and still have the option of breeding from him in the future, should his foals turn out to be spectacularly good?