Help needed with horse aggression!

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justxtb

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Hi i have a ID x shire 13 year old gelding, hes the most kindest horse you would ever like to meet with manners of a saint around people and most horses. His best friend is a section A that he adores and lets rule him. He can sometimes act a bit stallionish like pawing his front feet and the stance he has. Hes a very dominant horse in the field but not normaly nasty with it, Hes kept with mares fine so not riggy and small shetlands.Last year he attacked a small cob colt very aggressively, i put this down to taking a dislike to him as it was a new horse. But yesturday we got in the little mare shetland to give it a bath, when i put it back out in the field my big horse attacked it very very aggressively pining her to the floor and biting, the shetland needed stitching up with 37 stitches. THey normaly live fine together..Please help me find out what could be the reason for this..Could it be a jealousy thing?
 
Im at my wits end, I love my horse to bits, I really need to sort this problem out..Ive had the vet to take blood samples to see if there are any under lying problems and there isnt. My vet even says its very unusual for this to happen. Im sure there must be someone on this group that could help me find a cure or work out how to deal with it.
 
You're right that this is unusual behaviour and his agression may have a number of courses.

First thought is that scent is important to horses and he may not have recognised her as she smelt differently and therefore attacked her as if she was an unknown horse.

Secondly, even though your gelding may not try and mount mares, we have found that in a mixed group geldings can become very attached to a particularly mare (is your section A a mare?) and their behaviour can become difficult if they are separated or if they view another horse, even another mare, as a potential threat to the bond they have with their important 'other'. We are lucky enough to have enough land to split the groups up and maybe if you can find a way to divide your group future attacks can be avoided.

I hope your poor little mare recovers well. I imagine that she must be quite traumatised!

Hope this helps.
 
One of my old boys was very dominant and people used to ask if he was a stalion. He was 17.2 complete nightmare for everything. He was witnessed kicking an elderly mare down to ground :(
Yard owner wanted him separated but he jumped the fence back into main feild. There was a paddock far away from main so he went in there alone.
A few months later he was introduced to the feild again and was fine. I don't know if it was the solitary TO or just that all other handling was coming on really well so was finally getting some boundaries in him that he never had in his previous home.
 
The little section A is a gelding? Im thinking you could be right with the different smell as i was bathing the little shetland before hand. I am so confused and really want to get to the bottom of this..There must be a reason why hes doing it? Also i have put the little shetlands into their own paddock now to keep them seperate..But now im really worried if i get one of the other horses out he may do it again to them?
 
annaellie said:
One of my old boys was very dominant and people used to ask if he was a stalion. He was 17.2 complete nightmare for everything. He was witnessed kicking an elderly mare down to ground :(
Yard owner wanted him separated but he jumped the fence back into main feild. There was a paddock far away from main so he went in there alone.
A few months later he was introduced to the feild again and was fine. I don't know if it was the solitary TO or just that all other handling was coming on really well so was finally getting some boundaries in him that he never had in his previous home.
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This sounds like my horse with the aggression, but hes 200% in every other way, you wouldnt wish for a better behaved horse.
 
The most strangest thing is: When the little shetland was attacked she couldnt get away fast enough..But ever since shes neighing to my horse and wanting to be back in with him..when i took my big horse out riding today he wasnt himself he was on his toes alot, this is not like him as hes normaly a quiet hack. He was napping to get back with the shetlands and was neighing himself to them?? I think this is very strange behaviour...what would you think??
 
The smell of certain types of shampoos would certainly be MORE than enough to stop your chap recognising the pony - and trying to drive it off/attack it as a 'stranger'!

During the summer, we were using my old stallion to tease his daughters (as I didn't want to wind up the 3 year old colt who would be covering them!) It was a total disaster - the old stallion just didn't want to take ANY interest in his daughters at all - and they wouldn't show to him. A bit of research turned up the reason - horses can detect other horses whose major histocompatibility complex proteins are very similar (or very different) to their own. So my RID stallion was totally disinterested in his daughters, very interested in other RID mares, and a raging sex maniac with a Warmblood mare!

We tried putting a bit of Old Spice around the stallion's nose to confuse him and get him keen (it has been reported quite widely that Old Spice turns a stallion on!) It helped a bit! But once we found a mare who was ready for the young stallion to cover (having first teased him with the older stallion) all HE wanted to do was attack her (because he smelt the other stallion on her - he didn't show ANY signs of aggression with mares he teased!)

Once the strange smell wore off, she again was his friend!
 
Thankyou That is very interesting, maybe that is the case..It would be nice if i could think that as im very worried its more of a jealousy thing. If it is im worried to get the others out the field without him incase he does it again. I wonder like you i could do somesort of experiment to see if it is the sense of smell??
 
justxtb said:
The little section A is a gelding? Im thinking you could be right with the different smell as i was bathing the little shetland before hand. I am so confused and really want to get to the bottom of this..There must be a reason why hes doing it? Also i have put the little shetlands into their own paddock now to keep them seperate..But now im really worried if i get one of the other horses out he may do it again to them?
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I am sorry, but this horse needs keeping separate from the others. This kind of behaviour does not just disappear and next time his victim may not be so lucky. Horses have been kicked to death by horses exhibiting this kind of aggression. I really would never, ever trust him in a herd situation again. We have a cob at our yard who is the most lovely and affectionate horse you could imagine. You can take him anywhere and even if another horse barges into him he will not bat an eyelid. 99.9% of the time he is also very good in the herd but unfortunately when he takes a sudden dislike to another member he will run them down, corner them and then kick and kick and kick. If we had not been there, the other horse would have been dead. We gave him a second chance and all was well for several weeks then he ran down a young mare and did some real damage. We were there at the time to resue her and I am sure if we weren't she would have been dead. He now has his own paddock where he can socialise with the others over the fence and is really happy. He has been kept separate like that now for over two years.

ETA: Smell can certainly make a horse not recognise another. I once put a fly rug on a mare that had recently been washed and smelt strongly of detergent. The others wouldn't let her near them! But they di not attack her like your horse did your pony. They just sent her away.
 
justxtb said:
The most strangest thing is: When the little shetland was attacked she couldnt get away fast enough..But ever since shes neighing to my horse and wanting to be back in with him..when i took my big horse out riding today he wasnt himself he was on his toes alot, this is not like him as hes normaly a quiet hack. He was napping to get back with the shetlands and was neighing himself to them?? I think this is very strange behaviour...what would you think??
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One of the problems with keeping geldings and mares together is the problem of sex. The little mare may be coming into season and even though your big guy doesn't mount mares his normal natural behaviour can take over. We had a young gelding come to us for retraining as he was nappy and spooky. Firstly we put him in with a couple of mares to simulate his environment at his home (same behaviour) then we put him in with just boys. After 24 hours he was calm, quiet and a lovely hack. We love the easier cases :D

We also have a number of late cut stallions here. Most we keep together in boy groups but one is now in what we call the 'thug' group - a very tight group of older, very dominate mares that we daren't put any other 'normal' horse with. When he was with the boys he became very aggerssive as they weren't behaving like girls should - not allowing him to keep them together and generally stressing him out. Now he is in with girls (there is always an exception to every rule!!) but with these horrors he really is bottom of the heap and is much more manageable and polite with it. You can almost see the relief on his face when we go to fetch him.

Even after forty years we're still learning and there is always one horse who will surprise us from time to time. Nobody can know it all but I hope the above information helps to explain your guys' behaviour a little better.
 
I can't help with the reason why he's doing it, but I have experienced the same sort of behaviour.

We had a large gelding on livery here for around 5 years. He had become the dominant horse, but was not too aggressive. During that time new horses of both sexes had come & gone & we had no problems introducing him to them.

I bought a 12.2 welsh mare for my child & she was put in a paddock next to him separated by electric tape for approximately 3 weeks. They seemed quite happy with this arrangement, & after this time any squealing etc had stopped.

One afternoon I decided to open the electric fence & I couldn't believe what happened next! He ran her round & round the paddock with his ears flat back & his mouth open. He was trying to bite her sides as he ran & she was squirting wee as she fled in sheer panic. (Wasn't in season). He chased her back through the tape & it was caught up round her neck for a moment or two - absolute nightmare - I thought he would kill her, it was relentless! Long story short, I opened the gate & she ran in to the yard & somehow I managed to shut it behind her. They were both dripping with sweat.

I've heard of two similar incidents since, strangely enough both involving Shetland mares & big geldings. One where a Shire actually picked her up by her neck causing ligament damage!

I still don't understand why it happened, but he did it again when his owner accidentally forgot to shut the gate to the field & he got in with her again. They seemed incompatible.
 
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