New gelding trouble - bit of a frantic day

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amzy

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My new gelding has been in a field on his own for the past 6 days while he had his course of wormer and he seemed quite settled and happy. Today we put him in with two other geldings and a mare who is in season. The geldings sorted themselves out within 10 minutes but then my new horse went beserk with the mare, chasing her away and lunging at her with his teeth. Whenever she tried to get away he circled her with his head really low to the ground and ears flat back. After then chasing her more until she panicked and nearly went through a hedge onto the road, we decided to take him out of the field so we could get her out and into another one. He is now back with the other geldings and everything seems o.k but I was just wondering if this was normal behaviour and should we now keep him away from mares?
 
Some don't do well with mares and some more so when they are in season. You could try to integrate again when the mare is not in season or keep him with the lads.

Bert does not fair well with mares. Opposite problem though, he ends up henpecked!
 
I've never known a gelding like this before and was beginning to think he may be a rig or something! I suppose though that if that was the case, he wouldn't have been so nasty - am I right?
 
I dont think that I could mix Merlin with a mare if there were other mares or geldings in the same field, he used to share with another mare (who he adored) but would chase other horses away if they dared to ride past!!! Interesting as it was next to a riding school who went past four times a day!!!

He is now in a field next to four mares, and spends most of his time either chasing the other geldings away or 'necking' over the fence with his girlie!!!

I suppose it depends on the horse, yours didnt sound too happy!!! :-)
 
I saw a warmblood gelding herd mares like this, the same low snaking neck and stallion like behavour. He would get them all in a corner of the field and refuse to let any of them move. He also went on to attack one of my geldings very badly, galloping him up and down the fence taking enormous lumps of flesh out of his sides. He was lucky to recover from the shock and had dreadful scars which never went or grew hair again.

I would be wary of keeping this horse in a mixed sex group.
 
Just because a horse is "studdy" doesn't make it a rig. In fact true rigs are relatively rare. But even gelded horses produce some testosterone and some of them don't seem to have got the memo at all! My old event horse behaved so much like a stallion - and other horses reacted to him as if he was - that we had him checked but it was just "him".

As far as rigs being nastier than stallions . . . well I know a few stallions who aren't very nice! And one of the sweetest stallions I've ever ridden tried seriously to kill another stallion one day when his people slept on the job and let them end up in the same place. It was frankly terrifying to watch. Some horses cope, some don't. Some horses can cope fine with a mixed herd if they're raised to it and the herd is stable but not if the situation changes.

Some geldings just don't do well in mixed herds particularly when the mare(s) comes in season - it just taps into all those primal urges. One gelding alone often gets picked on (as, oddly enough, do lots of stallions in mare herds - it's way more complicated than "stallion = dominant") but even a gelding that don't usually show an interest in mares can be goaded to fight if there are resources (mares) to be had.

Maybe best to leave him be if possible. If you have to have him in with the mare there are various methods you can try to keep things peaceful but it's certainly a risk.
 
Thanks for your comments everyone, we're going to keep him with the geldings now, just to be on the safe side.
 
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