How can you tell.....

asommerville

asommerville

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If a horse has been gelded properly?

If a horse has covered as a 2 and 3 year old, gelded at 3. Exhibits stallion like behavior for about 3-4 months and then calms down with proper handling. As a 5 year old turned out with a mare, when she is at the height of her season he mounts her and carries on the act - however apparantly the mare was both encouraging him and kicking out at him. (These 2 have been out for 5 months together with no issues to date). There was a gelding in the field next door and said horse was running at him and trying to attack him over the fence.

What do you think? Slighlty worried that he may not be gelded properly....eeek!
 
Some just are like that even when you know they've been done. You can tell yourself if there's anything there, but if he did retain one you wouldn't necessarily feel it if it had never dropped. If you don't trust the vet that did him only sure way is to get another out to run tests
 
Some sexual behaviour is instinctive (i.e. it's hardwired in the brain from birth). Some sexual behaviour depends on hormones acting on parts of the brain as the horse matures. And some depends on the presence of sex hormones in an already mature horse.

So a young colt will already (pre "adolescence") engage in male sexual behaviour as play... colts play slightly differently to fillies, with lots of play mounting both with each other and their mums.

Geldings do actually know about what to do with mares, but because they have very few sex hormones (testosterone specifically) they have no motivation to do anything about it. However they can, if really encouraged by the mare, often do the business. Most geldings can get an erection, though not usually in response to the scent or behaviour of a mare in season. A gelding who actually has experience of covering a mare pre-gelding will be able to "court" and get the mare in the mood better than a gelding who has never had the experience.

Geldings feeling frisky usually only happens in spring, when the circulating levels of a hormone called ACTH are high... testosterone can be released from the gonads, but it is also released in small quantities from the adrenal glands, which are stimulated by ACTH, and in spring this is more likely to happen - and the mares are usually a bit more likely to be persistent at this time of year, for similar reasons ;)

Apparently vets do really well out of blood testing for rigs... Anecdotally, practically none of the blood tests requested by worried owners to test for retained testicles show a postive result.

I'd just let them get on with it. We had a gelding who could in our field a few years back, and the mares all had happy smiles for a change. The other geldings were a bit mystified but relieved to be left alone for a change.
 
poor YO is worried that they will hurt each other. Or that he is not cut right so will try to escape to get to other mares (he's never tried that though - I'm hoping that it was because it was under his nose!)

I said i would keep them seperate for a couple of days then they can go back out together. But was starting to get worried that he wasnt done properly and i had an unwelcome new addition!
 
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