Sunday evening musings - does herd "position" impact general behaviour and does it change over time?

FlyingCircus

FlyingCircus

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As title really!

Are dominant horses in the field generally more dominant/bold/other in day to day life when being handled or ridden?

And does experience and age alter a horses position in a herd?

Curious to see what other people have found in their own herds.
 
In my experience, herd position makes no difference to how a horse is to handle. My big mare was very much the leader of the herd, but was angelic in every other way. She wouldn't ever have voiced an opinion with humans, but could be a bit of a bully with horses. My Welsh mare wasn't the head of the herd, but she was a total princess with people and expected her slave (me) to be kind and gentle at all times, even when she didn't reciprocate 🙄. I think breed makes more of a difference than anything and mine have not changed herd position as they've aged.
 
I've just introduced my new boy to my other 2 and find it all very interesting!

Older Connie Gelding - indifferent to everything, in it for an easy life and happily gets pushed off hay piles and moved around. Gets on with all horses, super easy to handle. Would never lift a leg to anyone, horse or human.

Welsh Mare - Quite insecure, bosses older Connie around terribly. Seems to go for a "I'll hurt you first before you can hurt me" approach to life that she used to carry over into being handled.

Young Connie - Nervy, very submissive..and yet he can push the other two off their hay with just a look.

Was expecting the Welsh mare to be pushing both boys around, but it seems almost as if she's happy to slot into "second place".
 
I found it much easier in the field when my pony was king, rather than when my loan pony was bottom, but they were both very easy to handle
 
I would say so, my old gelding lived in a pair with my friends gelding. The other gelding was boss but constantly stressed by being boss. Things changed and boss gelding is now with a different gelding who is his boss and friends boy is much happier
 
Any excuse to promote the Clever Cowgirl on YouTube - her herds’ dynamics regularly shift and she explains how she knows, which is always interesting. Doesn’t impact how they behave with her.
 
My mare went from bottom to top of the pecking order after she'd had a foal.
It was sad to see my gelding drop down the order as he got old 😟
 
It is quite fluid, I have seen ponies go from middle to bottom and vice versa depending on which group they are in/who else is in the field.. but I would not expect their behaviour towards me to be any different
Sometimes the older ones might make less of a fuss about things, more like is it really worth a spat
One of my mares (who is in foal) ended up being put in with the youngsters so she is top dog atm, but she will not try very hard to stay in that position when she goes back in with her peers
 
I think Mim is a lot less entitled, generally, when she's not on top. She's never difficult or unpleasant but she can be quite bossy and full of herself if she's top mare. It is small things like giving the mare ears to horses we hack with if they annoy her, or getting grumpy when sharing an arena with lots of other horses who might be passing her a bit closely. She doesn't kick but she will come off the contact and tense through the neck, and grind teeth or make faces.

When she's not on top, she's sweet and gentle and lovely to all.
 
I don’t think it generally makes much of a difference to their behaviour with humans, except a nice bold confident horse is more likely to be herd boss and more likely to be fun to handle for me.

They definitely (normally) slide down the ranks as they get older and it’s quite sad to watch, I think higher ranking ones find it harder to cope with going to the middle than a middle ranker finds sliding to the bottom as they’re just not used to it.

I’m currently watching my mum’s elderly mare take on an unwanted position as leader over my aged pony, who’s losing his eyesight. They’re the only two left following a sudden death and mare has always been middle ranked and is finding it incredibly stressful to be having to make decisions and choices. She’s fretful and not resting properly. Ideally, we’d buy them an easy going young mare to take charge of them both.
 
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This is super fascinating! I love to see how herd dynamics play out.

I've had the older Connie and Welsh mare duo together for 5 years now, and have been pleasantly surprised that they have gotten along with 3 seperate geldings at different times. I wonder if that would change if I introduced another mare, rather than a gelding.

I have to admit, it's not something I generally consider when buying. I just buy the horse that suits the job, rather than the gender!
 
My Connie once shared a field with two small ponies and became boss and he became horrible to handle - bolshy, nippy, naughty. He didn’t know how to handle the power haha

Soon as he went back in with my Welsh D who is always the boss, he went back to his polite self!
 
Dave is not dominant in the herd, but he's very sociable & he manipulates & uses his herd mates.
He hangs out & plays with the big geldings & uses them to shelter when the weather is bad, but he also gets flung about a bit when they get rough.
If he was a human I'd say he's placed himself as the funny, but irritating wee pal that annoys everyone, but they can't help befriend him.
 
My current ones are middle to bottom-but-oblivious, 3 in a herd of 15 on 30 acres.

Its certainly easier to get higher ranking ones out of the field than lower ranking but I don't see any correlation with their general behaviour. 'Bottom but oblivious' is very aware of everything going on around him and internally jumpy but it doesn't translate to movement, you can just see he's tense or breathing faster but he plods on regardless.

My old mare was lead mare, she was highly strung and reactive and it didn't suit her at all, she could have done with a steady leader. God knows why they all followed her, she had them up and down the field constantly and waiting at the gate by 2pm. Her behaviour was the same in and out of the field, constantly on high alert and borderline dangerous, not the confidence you'd expect from a leader.

All of ours are in large herds in huge pastures and its very interesting to watch. The mares seem to have 2 cliques, an old quiet one and a bloody stupid one and they're often apart. The boys just wander round grazing and usually have a bestie but don't stress over who they're with.
 
Really interesting question. My old boy is top dog, but he always has been in any situation I’ve had him in. He has attitude in abundance in everything he does 🤣

The gentler younger soul is definitely bottom of the pile (bossed also by the Shetland!) but doesn’t care - he lives in his own world most of the time and didn’t have equine company before coming to us, so is just happy to have friends bless him.

The Shetland is the one in the middle and often trying to dominate my old boy. That definitely translates into handling so he has to be reminded of his manners if they’re all being brought in together, for example, as he’ll cut in front and put his ears back.

I find it really interesting to observe them. I really hope as it’s just the three of them that my old boy won’t lose his position. I dread to think of a field where the Shetland is in charge!
 
The orange one was definitely easier to deal with in general life when under the thumb of his “wife”. Don’t get me wrong I think he was second in command of their “mini herd” within a larger group (& I think their little group was second below the main boss mare & her “husband” as anyone else would get out of their way) but he was much happier when not in sole charge / when another horse was ordering him about (he worried too much / was far too much on high alert if he felt solely responsible!)

The hairy one really could do with being bossed around a little more as he quite happily walks into other horses, people, quad bikes, trees etc and expects them to move. There is precisely ONE horse he respects and he sure as hell doesn’t listen to me unless he has to! I mean don’t get me wrong he’s an excellent bouncer/ conflict resolver but he’s hard work to keep out of your space because he just does not see why he should have to when he barges everything else in the world. (Rather irrelevant as think he is going to end up retired)
 
100%.
My biggest issues are with much bigger but younger horses that don’t want to be boss but are 3+ hands bigger than anything else so everything else respects them. Makes them really nervy ime unless they’re that way inclined anyway.
 
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