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WeeBrown

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Back story:

Our field has three horses - my mare, my gelding and another gelding belonging to someone else. The other gelding is head of the field. My mare and gelding are not best buds but there is no kicking or biting between them and they will share a pile of hay. At the onset of winter and hay being put out on a night (they were still out then) this other gelding got handy with his hooves and kicked my mare a few times (my gelding is usually more sensible at feeding/bringing in times and will head out the way). It stopped being a problem as they were then brought in on a night due to boggey field/bad weather.

Problem:

This other gelding and mine have in the past had play fights; this gelding will come up to mine and rear/bite but it has seemed playful and rarely kicking involved. In the past week though my gelding has come in with his rug ripped to the point that it will need serious patching up and tonight he has come in with his replacement rug (borrowed from my mare) also ripped.

What would you do? If this happened to you, would you think your horse had rubbed it or that it had happened due to biting/kicking? Fencing is wooden posts with electric tape. He does have sweetitch but he stopped rubbing everywhere but his mane/tail during the summer and hasn't seemed to rub anything at all since it got colder/no flies. His stable rug isnt ripped/rubbed at all.

Sorry for huge post! Swiss chocolate hot chocolate for those that reached this far
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ye i'm afraid sounds like some serious playing. i'm finding at the mo as the fields are forzen etc there is less for them to do out there so tends to be some full on play! i've had ripped rugs/bleeding faces/chewed bums/cut lips.
 
TBH yes I would think it was another horse doing it but I would just think 'thats horses!' Ours are playing a lot more at the moment because there is nothing for them to eat... have you considered that they may benefit from a little hay during the day too? this is a particularly bad winter for grass due to all the rain and snow...
 
Yes, boredom from lack of grass due to it being frozen probably means more time spent playing. I'd maybe seperate with electric fencing for the time being.
 
Haylage is put out in the field before they go out in the morning. They all get a pile each (3 piles) and they get half of what I would leave them on a night, so quite a bit.
 
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Haylage is put out in the field before they go out in the morning. They all get a pile each (3 piles) and they get half of what I would leave them on a night, so quite a bit.

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I've always been taught to leave more hay piles than horses to avoid fighting over food. Could you split the haylage into more piles? Put them further apart? Give them more - what does quite a bit actually mean?

Does your gelding actually enjoy rough playing (my lot do, and play fight with each other all the time but thankfully don't bother much with other horses in the herd so no problems with upsetting other owners!)? If he doesn't I'd be looking to split them up, but if he is actually enjoying himself I'd try and find a different solution.
 
On a night they get a shavings bag full of haylage (well he gets haynets as he is greedy!). By morning the mare still has some left but his is gone (he is a small cob). We have put more piles before but it is pretty windy up where we live and so it tends to be better clumped together rather than smaller piles. They move off piles o.k if a horse comes towards them. He is used to being bottom of the pecking order so he doesn't need much telling to back off.

I'm not sure if he enjoys it or not. He used to groom the other gelding during summer but he wouldn't instigate it and if he stopped and moved away the gelding would follow and try to start the grooming again, if my boy didn't do it he would get bitten on the bum.

I know horses are horses but who can afford to keep buying new rugs? I thought maybe I was being daft and it was my horse rubbing it but if everyone is saying that it is most likely fighting, playful or otherwise then that's a different matter.

Looking at it another way what would you say if your horse was ripping another owner's rugs?
 
We can separate them no bother at all - YO had already agreed this when my mare was getting kicked but we didn't do it then as so long as the other gelding is in when the piles of hay are put out there is no more kicking with my mare. However, the other owner will kick off big time if we do split the field as she sees it as her field as she was on the yard first. I just wanted to establish whether people thought it was my horse causing the damage and if anyone had a better idea than splitting the field. I could put more haylage out, I doubt if other owner would be willing to do this too so I would be paying more for feeding her horse or there is a product called yum yum to stop rug biting so I could try that. If only there was a way to cause an electric shock to the little [****] without harming my horse.
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I was always taught to put out at least 1 or 2 extra piles than there are horses, so the boss will always chase off to get the biggest pile it means the underling can alwas find a vacant pile - can you split existing haylage into more piles?
 
Read this post - may help you solve your problem if you were to keep them in the same field together!
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http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/sh...&PHPSESSID=

I must say, I had exactly the same problem years ago with one of my friends horses. Our horses just use to play fight all of the time in the field - my rugs got trashed! I went to the YO and asked to move into a different herd, to which he agreed. Then the YB kicked up a fuss and I was asked to move back to the original herd. Me and my friend then took it in turns for turnout, I'd stable mine for a day while hers was out, and vice versa. Then this became an issue with YB who proceeded to 'wooden spoon' it and my friend fell out with me *rolls eyes*... it's a tricky situation to be in, and doesn't help when people interfere stirring!!
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I paid for my rugs to be repaired myself, as the way I looked at it, my friend couldn't stop her horse doing it, and it wasn't her fault. Just one of those annoying things I'm afraid xx
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