Late castration to improve conformation

I'm not sure on the science behind it but the ones we have that have been late gelded do tend to have better necks, quicker, than those gelded as foals/yearlings.

Here is an example of a 'normal' gelding, and a late cut gelding, brothers, I think you can guess who is who:
http://www.mikewatts.com/hdt2008/Windsor12Sep08/IMGB3552.html
http://www.mikewatts.com/hdt2008/Ashfields20Sep08/IMGB4094.html

We owned the late cut one for a few years, lovely pony, though not as successful as his now world champion brother he's still up there very competitively :) (and had a successful show career as a stallion before)
 
From personal experience, when we had shires we could only make true pairs out of geldings; they'd be a hand higher higher than their parents*. We gelded them before 12 months if that was their purpose. Partially because we wanted it done in the field and older ran the risk of a hospital job and complications associated with increased blood supply. My grandfather did like them to have a bit of crest on before they were castrated but he was born in 1890 and the understanding of hormones was a bit more limited then!
*Everyone got used in harness in some context.
Of course, heavier horses may show this difference more dramatically and proportionately it'd only be 1.5" on a welsh so not so noticeable.

Point of discussion: if one wanted to replicated the effects of testosterone on a geldings development you could have him gelded young and hormone therapy him. I've never heard of this happening. Perhaps there might also be the androgen blocking/ estrogen increasing effects of modern world; water supply, clover, GM feed etc to take into account.
I have a late gelded spanish and he's now got a fat wobble instead of a true crest! (He's ok everywhere else) I think he'd have a massive neck anyway though.
 
Illusion100 said:
Genetics determines height and conformation, not castration.

It is impossible to prove that testosterone levels affects growth plate closure, fact.
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Height is not entirely determined by genetics. Horse clones have different heights, this has been seen with clones of the quarter horse Smart little lena varying between 14hh and 16hh in height if I remember well.

"She showed the audience a photo of Smart Little Lena, a Quarter Horse stallion from whose cells five clones were produced at Texas A&M. All five clones have the same basic coloring as the donor, but all five have different markings. And they're different heights, with slightly different conformation.

"It's just the way things happen in utero," said Hinrichs. "That's what makes foals resemble more closely or not. The biggest environmental impact is from the uterus. For example, with these natural equine twins (she showed a photo), this one was 80 pounds at birth while the other was 29 pounds. The larger one had more placental attachment area and thus more nutrition from the mother, while the small one had about one-third the placental area of the large one. The big foal was 16.1 hands high at maturity; the other was 14.2. So the uterine environment can affect phenotype (physical characteristics) at birth and at adulthood. The recipient mare will put her own influence on the foal. "
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/19194/equine-cloning-where-are-we-today


I have heard that horses gelded late don't grow as tall. The explanation was that the horse puts part of the energy into bulking out instead of just growing. I don't know if it's true. The horses that I have seen gelded late (we have one gelded at 8) definitely have a thick neck even years later. Don't know if it is an improvement though.
 
I am having my colt gelded between winter - spring of next year. I thought gelding as soon as possible was a good thing?
I'm not starting an argument, I am genuinely unsure!
 
Not the same thing, of course, and I believe steroids (!) were involved, but would Arnold Schwarzenegger have been a different shape if he'd been gelded at 10? :D And if he were gelded now (now here's a thought!:)), would his conformation shrink?

I've an open mind on the Highland colts, btw, and am very interested to read the debate here. It has cost me no extra to run them on and has been an interesting experiment. When the vet comes to give them the snip next month, a six month old colt will be castrated at the same time. So you see, I really do have an open mind!
 
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QueenMoo said:
I am having my colt gelded between winter - spring of next year. I thought gelding as soon as possible was a good thing?
I'm not starting an argument, I am genuinely unsure!
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I generally have my colts castrated at around 12 - 24 months old, however that is providing we don't have a 'filly year'. I keep all foals together so if we do have a 'filly year' then I'll have the colt/s castrated a little bit earlier, so closer to around 10 months old.
 
Spring Feather said:
I generally have my colts castrated at around 12 - 24 months old, however that is providing we don't have a 'filly year'. I keep all foals together so if we do have a 'filly year' then I'll have the colt/s castrated a little bit earlier, so closer to around 10 months old.
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Thank you for replying, SF. Rory is going to be turned back out with Missy when weaned so gelding is essential to prevent accidental inbreeding. Gelding at around 10 months is okay then?
 
QueenMoo said:
Thank you for replying, SF. Rory is going to be turned back out with Missy when weaned so gelding is essential to prevent accidental inbreeding. Gelding at around 10 months is okay then?
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Yes that's fine. Some people like to geld early while the colt is still on the mother and from a psychological point of view that makes sense, however I prefer not to castrate at such a young age, and we have tough winters here so I'd always wait until the early spring to do it.
 
Spring Feather said:
Yes that's fine. Some people like to geld early while the colt is still on the mother and from a psychological point of view that makes sense, however I prefer not to castrate at such a young age, and we have tough winters here so I'd always wait until the early spring to do it.
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My vet said he'd prefer to geld him in Spring, next year. But I just wanted to be extra careful should Rory work out what to do. Thank you for taking the time to reply!
 
Mine was gelded the day before his 1st birthday, and I wish he hadnt have been, I think having him gelding when he would have been 2 or maybe abit older would have done him a world of good and definitly make him look in better condition than what he is at the moment lol. The next one I buy will be a colt and will not be gelded untill at least 3/4 (behavioiur permitting)
 
Palindrome said:
Height is not entirely determined by genetics. Horse clones have different heights, this has been seen with clones of the quarter horse Smart little lena varying between 14hh and 16hh in height if I remember well.

"She showed the audience a photo of Smart Little Lena, a Quarter Horse stallion from whose cells five clones were produced at Texas A&M. All five clones have the same basic coloring as the donor, but all five have different markings. And they're different heights, with slightly different conformation.

"It's just the way things happen in utero," said Hinrichs. "That's what makes foals resemble more closely or not. The biggest environmental impact is from the uterus. For example, with these natural equine twins (she showed a photo), this one was 80 pounds at birth while the other was 29 pounds. The larger one had more placental attachment area and thus more nutrition from the mother, while the small one had about one-third the placental area of the large one. The big foal was 16.1 hands high at maturity; the other was 14.2. So the uterine environment can affect phenotype (physical characteristics) at birth and at adulthood. The recipient mare will put her own influence on the foal. "
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/19194/equine-cloning-where-are-we-today


I have heard that horses gelded late don't grow as tall. The explanation was that the horse puts part of the energy into bulking out instead of just growing. I don't know if it's true. The horses that I have seen gelded late (we have one gelded at 8) definitely have a thick neck even years later. Don't know if it is an improvement though.
Click to expand...

I was being facetious about the clone remark!
 
I
Palindrome said:
Height is not entirely determined by genetics. Horse clones have different heights, this has been seen with clones of the quarter horse Smart little lena varying between 14hh and 16hh in height if I remember well.

"She showed the audience a photo of Smart Little Lena, a Quarter Horse stallion from whose cells five clones were produced at Texas A&M. All five clones have the same basic coloring as the donor, but all five have different markings. And they're different heights, with slightly different conformation.

"It's just the way things happen in utero," said Hinrichs. "That's what makes foals resemble more closely or not. The biggest environmental impact is from the uterus. For example, with these natural equine twins (she showed a photo), this one was 80 pounds at birth while the other was 29 pounds. The larger one had more placental attachment area and thus more nutrition from the mother, while the small one had about one-third the placental area of the large one. The big foal was 16.1 hands high at maturity; the other was 14.2. So the uterine environment can affect phenotype (physical characteristics) at birth and at adulthood. The recipient mare will put her own influence on the foal. "
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/19194/equine-cloning-where-are-we-today


I have heard that horses gelded late don't grow as tall. The explanation was that the horse puts part of the energy into bulking out instead of just growing. I don't know if it's true. The horses that I have seen gelded late (we have one gelded at 8) definitely have a thick neck even years later. Don't know if it is an improvement though.
Click to expand...


This is called genetics by environment and adds a whole other dimension to genetics. Basically while a horse or any other animal can have a specific gene the environment will have an impact on how it is expressed. So just because a horse has a gene to be tall if it grows up in a poor environment it may never become tall etc. I've done quite a bit of research on this lol!
 
If its conformationally incorrect keeping entire does not improve or correct it. A cresty neck, slightly more density and topline does not equate to better conformation. To me, conformation is skeletal soundness. Even not built up with work, a horse should still be conformationally correct. How many buy as youngsters or ones out of work untouched based on conformation value. Muscle you can build with work and nutrition but the skeleton isn't your control really (minus correctional work able to do for certain things etc).

The 'nice' larger topline and neck can simply be visually more pleasing to look at compared to a less toppy incorrect horse, detracting other conformation faults - to a less subjective eye.

Only my unqualified opinion anyway.

All that based on what would be a normal horse with adequate environment conditions, nutrition etc.
 
Have to 'like' what CS has said but also take carrots&mints to task simply because late gelded or not, your youngsters will still go through the gawky stage, you cannot get away with that, it is totally natural and to say it won't happen if you geld the next one later is a total fallacy.

Youngsters have to be allowed to grow naturally at their own rate and to force the issue possibly by over feeding to keep the 'round and developed' look is just very short sightedness which is likely to only give the horse problems in later life.
 
I seem to remember that years ago it was common for colts to be kept entire until the spring of their 3rd year, but people now tend to have them cut earlier for management reasons, and for the reason that geldings tend to grow larger.

Surely the crest is fat, not muscle and is laid down due to hormones?
 
Illusion100 said:
Could you please explain why it could?
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Just like other sorts of studies and surveys. Say you wanted to see if a new drug had an effect on blood pressure, you have two groups: one taking the drug the other not. That's the treatment. Then you measure blood pressure in both groups and use statistics to see if the treatment made a significant difference or not. Of course you have to randomize the sampling from the population, take into account possible confounding factors, or perform some kind of matching. But it is possible, thank goodness, otherwise we couldn't do any medical trials.

Investigating whether late castration made a difference to growth (esp. of bones at different rates which could affect conformation, closure of growth plates, etc.) would be very similar. The 'treatment' is late gelding vs early gelding.

Does that make sense? Have I completely misunderstood what you were saying?
 
bakewell said:
Presumably the nearest one has to a control group on this are racehorses?
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That could be a good population to study, assuming there aren't other factors that might produce a difference between early gelded (more NH) and late gelded (more flat-racing) groups.
 
fburton said:
That could be a good population to study, assuming there aren't other factors that might produce a difference between early gelded (more NH) and late gelded (more flat-racing) groups.
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I think the key would be fewer factors. No-ones going to produce a true control group!
 
was just about to reply about the Gawky stage, when i saw maesfen's post.... even the most beautiful 4yo will have had a real ugly duckling moment, & sometimes IMO the very smart yearlings & 2yos can look a lot less smart as they grow up, its like the geeky kids in high school always looking super hot when they hit their 30's

we bred the odd one here & there & without fail they have weeks/months when you just look at them & think please grow, you look awful today, but they need the time to grow slowly, forcing them to 'grow' by over feeding them creates far more problems later on.

id be interested if there is any research that suggests horses left entire grow 'faster' (impossible to quantify imo as no two horses are the same) and subsquently what/if any problems do they have later on in life

as everyone says, bad conformation is bad conformation, you can half starve a horse, work it incorrectly etc, but if it has good conformation, it has good conformation. (to me conformation is bone structure, nothing to do with muscle or condition)

in essence, this is why breeding horses is such a challenging, exciting & sometimes frustrating exercise!
 
Having seen first hand the reduced 'coltiness' when colts are kept in a her with stallions (seems to act like chemical castration), I'd not be surprised if the reduced testosterone has them maturing very much more like geldings anyway.

I've got 5 stallions in a herd with 6 geldings. The only one that looks obviously entire at a glance is the oldest, who developed in the absence of an older male. The others are only very slightly thicker through the neck than the chubby geldings.
 
pennyturner said:
Having seen first hand the reduced 'coltiness' when colts are kept in a her with stallions (seems to act like chemical castration), I'd not be surprised if the reduced testosterone has them maturing very much more like geldings anyway.

I've got 5 stallions in a herd with 6 geldings. The only one that looks obviously entire at a glance is the oldest, who developed in the absence of an older male. The others are only very slightly thicker through the neck than the chubby geldings.
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Echo this. Previous herd of colts running together would have one which did develop 'colty' and the rest were no different to geldings. Conformation not affected/improved only the top on the one colty one.
 
fburton said:
Just like other sorts of studies and surveys. Say you wanted to see if a new drug had an effect on blood pressure, you have two groups: one taking the drug the other not. That's the treatment. Then you measure blood pressure in both groups and use statistics to see if the treatment made a significant difference or not. Of course you have to randomize the sampling from the population, take into account possible confounding factors, or perform some kind of matching. But it is possible, thank goodness, otherwise we couldn't do any medical trials.

Investigating whether late castration made a difference to growth (esp. of bones at different rates which could affect conformation, closure of growth plates, etc.) would be very similar. The 'treatment' is late gelding vs early gelding.

Does that make sense? Have I completely misunderstood what you were saying?
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No and your example makes sense for drug testing.

However the problem is pesky genetics. Even full siblings will all be unique. The only way to certify sex hormones/castration influences height/conformation would be to geld a horse, say as a weanling, record findings at maturity, then sow the pair back on, reverse time, geld as a yearling, ensure every other daily factor is identical and then record findings at maturity and repeat with castration 1 year older, with the final trial ending with the horse left entire until maturity. Repeat with x amount of colts.

Each horse will have varying levels and fluctuating amounts of sex hormones at any given time. This is why statistic results are flawed, the factor under investigation is not controllable.

I hope that makes sense!
 
Yes, but the problem of differung genetics and variable physiology also exists with people or lab animals involved in drug trials. Even in the unusual situation of creating identical genetics and environment there will be some biological variation. That's why we use statistics.

Suppose researchers recorded the age of horses at growth plate closure in a good number of individuals. These ages will be spread out due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors. If they then divided the horses into two groups - entire and ungelded - and found that there was a significant difference in time of growth plate closure, wouldn't you consider that quite compelling evidence for testosterone (whose levels we know are markedly different in the two groups) being involved in the process?

It would be much better if levels of testosterone were also measured - and that's not impossible.

Correlation isn't causation, of course. But such a result would be very suggestive, no? Further experiments could be done to manipulate hormone levels or block their effects or whatever other interventions endocrinologists and biochemists have at their disposal. The fact that this would be done in different individuals is no more of a barrier to discovery than it would be in a trial in which a drug is given (or not) to different people.

In my opinion, this is a long way from saying it's impossible to prove that testosterone levels affects growth plate closure, the statement that puzzled me initially.
 
Do people disagree that horses gelded earlier tend to grow taller? If they do (which I have been told and read and which many on here seem to be saying) then surely that does impact their conformation because the relationships between the length of bones in the leg and so on will be different.

My RI who has bred horses for 40 years advised me to keep my colt entire as long as possible as 'he would make a better shape'. In the end I had him gelded at 21 months because he was jolly hard work by then! He is extremely chunky now - should have whipped them off earlier I think!!
 
I'm not sure that all parts (say leg length, or bone circ., or neck muscling) develop at the same speed on all horses. We've all seen breeds that mature more slowly/ finish growing later. I know that I've seen IDs grow a hand between 4 and 8, whereas some horses I've seen have been done at 4, no change in shape at all after.
Our shire geldings seemed to have more leg length than parents. The proportions were slightly different and I think I could pick one out without looking at the neck/ head. However they never had a "mare-ish" head. Nor the slightly longer body that the mares had, yet they were gelded at an age where there wasn't any visible difference. Oh and the geldings had much much bigger hooves!
Also do male equines have a longer growth period than female generally as do humans or is this totally hormone dependent? Human males seem to continue to develop height post puberty.

Not wishing to cause a yes/ no argument here, more a point for consideration and discussion. Unlikely to be any one answer!
 
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