How to introduce a dominant mare to a 3-gelding field

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GoodLineNotSquare

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We've gone through the decision-making process of "should we?" and, as the broad consensus on this estimable forum and elsewhere is yes, mares and geldings can co-exist (with caveats), the next question is how?

We've had and seen advice ranging from "the nearest they can get is staring over the fence" to "dump them in the field together and let herd dynamics sort it out".

The starting point is that our mare ("our?" she's mine!) is currently in livery where she is turned out in a purely mare field, with a gelding field directly over the fence. There are roughly 20 mares in total and about half are turned out at a given time, so she's used to being in a rotating herd. In general, she's strong-minded but well-behaved, *but* has two arch-nemeses with whom she inevitably has kicking matches. The nightmare scenario is we put her in with the geldings and she does damage to Mrs GLNS's cob or our companion old boy. I am not so worried about damage to her, as she resembles Hovis without the hypochondria.

The most plausible advice we've had is to build a Berlin Wall strip of two spaced electric fences to split a paddock, put the mare on one side and the geldings on the other, and after they've settled down, rotate one of the geldings into the mare half in turn, taking about a week for each step.

(plan B is to rehome Mr Grumpy, the third gelding, bring in another mare as a companion, and have boys' and girls' paddocks, but we've rather got attached to Mr Grumpy despite his general demeanour (yep, we've done vet/farrier/dentist/physio and the poor lad is carrying an old-ish injury and was showing other signs of lack of care, so we're cutting him some slack :) ))

But I digress. What would you do to bring our horses together without injury?
 
i've had a mare out with two geldings and no issues. a bit depends on the dynamics of the geldings. i think if theres a clear leader and the rest are more docile then they sort themselves. Mine never fought at all, the dominant one just kept everything decided.
 
GoodLineNotSquare said:
The most plausible advice we've had is to build a Berlin Wall strip of two spaced electric fences to split a paddock, put the mare on one side and the geldings on the other, and after they've settled down, rotate one of the geldings into the mare half in turn, taking about a week for each step.
Click to expand...

This is what I'd do, regardless of gender. I think you may already get an impression whether it's going to work or not by seeing if any of the boys become particularly clingy/possessive when in with the mare, or "guard" her from the other boys along the fence.

Before rehoming one and getting another mare, I'd opt for a plan B where you keep the mare with one boy, whoever is most easygoing, and keep the other two boys separate. One mare/one boy can work quite well when you don't have multiple boys vying for the mare's attention, or vice versa.
 
I have put my mare and gelding, who are ridiculously pair-bonded, out with two other geldings without any trouble. I prefer to have just the two of them, but this was at a point where for various reasons relating to grazing they needed to share a field with the YOs two geldings. All the horses knew each other very well as had been in consecutive fields for ages, and there was some squealing and snorting but they soon settled down. I think your system for introduction is a good one, as someone else said you should get a good idea from doing this as to whether it will work. You also, presumably, could have two pairs (mare/ gelding and gelding/ gelding) if it looks like having the horses as a larger group will be too risky. It sounds like you don't need to have all four out together and I don't think you need to have a mare instead of a gelding as a companion. Mare/ gelding pairs have worked fine in my experience - my two have been devoted to each other since they first met in 2012!
 
Thank you all for your comments. It looks like we'll be trying the introduction later in the spring after the paddocks have had some tlc and dried out. Hopefully the girl and boys will agree to coexist...
 
supsup said:
This is what I'd do, regardless of gender. I think you may already get an impression whether it's going to work or not by seeing if any of the boys become particularly clingy/possessive when in with the mare, or "guard" her from the other boys along the fence.

Before rehoming one and getting another mare, I'd opt for a plan B where you keep the mare with one boy, whoever is most easygoing, and keep the other two boys separate. One mare/one boy can work quite well when you don't have multiple boys vying for the mare's attention, or vice versa.
Click to expand...
my mare is out in a mixed herd and although down in the pecking order copes well as her best friend is a high ranking mare
and i think this makes quite a difference as she looks after her.ive been on a few yards and a couple had mixed herds the rest same sex or individual turnout.
 
GoodLineNotSquare said:
We've gone through the decision-making process of "should we?" and, as the broad consensus on this estimable forum and elsewhere is yes, mares and geldings can co-exist (with caveats), the next question is how?

We've had and seen advice ranging from "the nearest they can get is staring over the fence" to "dump them in the field together and let herd dynamics sort it out".

The starting point is that our mare ("our?" she's mine!) is currently in livery where she is turned out in a purely mare field, with a gelding field directly over the fence. There are roughly 20 mares in total and about half are turned out at a given time, so she's used to being in a rotating herd. In general, she's strong-minded but well-behaved, *but* has two arch-nemeses with whom she inevitably has kicking matches. The nightmare scenario is we put her in with the geldings and she does damage to Mrs GLNS's cob or our companion old boy. I am not so worried about damage to her, as she resembles Hovis without the hypochondria.

The most plausible advice we've had is to build a Berlin Wall strip of two spaced electric fences to split a paddock, put the mare on one side and the geldings on the other, and after they've settled down, rotate one of the geldings into the mare half in turn, taking about a week for each step.

(plan B is to rehome Mr Grumpy, the third gelding, bring in another mare as a companion, and have boys' and girls' paddocks, but we've rather got attached to Mr Grumpy despite his general demeanour (yep, we've done vet/farrier/dentist/physio and the poor lad is carrying an old-ish injury and was showing other signs of lack of care, so we're cutting him some slack :) ))

But I digress. What would you do to bring our horses together without injury?
Click to expand...

We have mixed herds and as livery horses come and go the ratio changes sometimes more geldings to mares etc.

This is a tough one as the devil you do the devil you don't, it seems this mare is the problem with dominance so:

1. I would first speak to the vet and see if they can advice any lotion or potion to calm her down
2. Do as you suggest and put temp fencing in with her on one side geldings on the other and leave them as long as it takes for the squealing,kicking and threatening behavior to stop
3. Then I would introduce the quietest of the geldings to her, maybe hack the two out together for a while but still separate field wise.
4. Then maybe while on lead ropes hand graze them moving up to turning them out together booted up though to minimize injury and oh yes maybe give a calmer to the mare for a while.
5. Then if that goes well move that gelding back to the other field and do the same with the other and so on till she has been out with all of them.
6. Then turn them out but make sure you have help in case you need to catch any in emergency

That is what I would do, bit long winded but because she is dominant I would take it this slow.
 
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