Young horse in an old herd? Can it work?

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Stormynight

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As per title, really. By young, I mean 3 years old. By old, I mean aged 18 to 35. Not a situation that was planned, but as a result of a miscommunication, it is what it is and I’m trying to work out how best to deal with it. Youngster was placed in a separate paddock for a week, then introduced into a herd of 8. Over the past week, there’s been a lot of tiffs, and the herd is generally very unsettled and “grumpy”.

3yo in question is usually a very placid, happy-go-lucky, sociable sort. Last herd he was introduced to he settled virtually instantly; this one, he’s had a complete personality switch which is really concerning me. Ears being pinned, biting, charging, you name it, and this is coming from both sides (him and the oldies). He’s still the same placid pony to handle outside of the field (give or take a whinny or two), but in the field, I’ve never seen behaviour like this from him before and I’m quite shocked by the intensity of it all.

So, I know every set of circumstances is different, but is this a dynamic that is ever likely to settle? I’m feeling at the moment like I want to find him somewhere more suitable, but equally it seems unfair to move a youngster again and it’s still very early days. I’m not sure if I’m jumping the gun, but I’m feeling uncomfortable about it all.

Apologies for the waffly post, and cookies are on offer for anybody that’s made it to the end. Just in desperate need of some sense talking into me after a stressful few weeks, please!

TIA!
 
Sorry to hear your struggling, its awful when they are so unsettled.
Just wanted to add my experience of a young horse in a mature herd. My first 3 yr old was a gelding, he was lovely, just wanted to play but he was constantly getting injured as the others didnt! I moved to another yard soon after and he ended up with a fractured leg when rough playing with his friend went wrong! After that he was seperated by tape but along side the others for his own safety. I eventually moved again a few years ater and never had any more issues. He found his soul mate and lived his days out there. I now have a 4 yr old mare. She was introduced to a mixed age herd when I bought her as a 3 yr old, thankfully no issues at all apart from mixed sex turnout and she liked the boys :) so we recently moved to another smaller yard where she is mares only and there is an age range from 5 mths old to 32 yr old and they have been fine. I do think mares are totally different to geldings though. Boys just want to play. Hope everything works out for you
 
It’s just politics. On the farm we are always introducing new horses and we don’t have luxury of individual turnout. Farmer tells us what field horses can go in and that’s it... each man (horse/pony) for himself! Very few accidents unless self inflicted like over excited running (always the tbs, honestly they are all complete dimwits) and after a few weeks of ugly faces and unnecessary squealing it’s fine.
 
I would expect the oldest ones to feel vulnerable with the addition of a youngster, my older boy certainly keeps himself out of any boisterous play that goes on although he does have a few minutes you can see he is ensuring he is able to escape into a different area, I think the younger ones may well be trying to protect the older ones from the newcomer, it may not be required but it sounds as if that is what is going on and it could continue especially once they have less grass and are sharing hay.
I think I would move the young one and 2 of the others into a different field and see how they settle, possibly once he has settled with them they could all move back together successfully as he should then be accepted by at least two of the herd. If you cannot take two or three out then I think I would be tempted to move him elsewhere for the comfort of the oldies who deserve a peaceful time.
 
Amymay - they were next to each other for a week, and have been together for a week. I’m aware it’s still very early days.

I’ve had horses out in group turnout for years, and the minor kicking, squealing, biting, etc doesn’t bother me. What does bother me is watching my usually placid 3yo acting outright aggressive to some of the others in the field - to a point of one taking a gate down after being cornered this morning. It definitely wasn’t play, and it appears to be getting worse as oppose to better.

Do you think the vulnerability is what’s causing the behaviour from the herd, and perhaps he’s mirroring that back, but not understanding when to stop? We saw none of this at his old yard, and he was out with a larger herd with a range of ages. I’ll ask re: sectioning off a few, that’s not a bad idea.
 
I think when there are some very old ones involved the rest will try to protect them and it may be difficult for a youngster to understand what is going on, herd dynamics are so interesting but there are times when I think we do need to step in to prevent it going too far, if they were not so old I would be less concerned but a 30 plus year old having a tumble could be very serious, in the wild the older ones would probably have been left behind by now but domesticated horses do not have the option of getting out of the way completely.
 
Yes, it can and does work. It sounds like your horse is trying to assert himself and testing his boundaries, and the others are responding to that in a similar way. I have always been a fan of mixed, "natural" herds and am very much of the "leave them to sort themselves out" mentality - which they do, 99% of the time.
 
Good points raised... but it’s so difficult to quantify the right point to intervene. I feel in my heart of hearts that it was hit today, but I’m torn over whether I’m being too “precious”.

Herd dynamics are fascinating, and it’s amazing how coordinated they can be, however, they do make for a royal headache sometimes!
 
Herd dynamics , Bob was elected herd leader in his absence. A well meaning and well brought up Irish draught of somewhere over 17 hh he got thoroughly duffed up by an older horse when he was young and wanted to play.I have the vets bills. Later he became protector ,much to his disgust . If two horses were having a ruck ne would simply walk through the middle of it . NOBODY DARED TO THROW A PUNCH AT BOB not because of his size but just the sheer embarrassment of seeing his disappointment.The bane of his life is a younger horse called Oliver ,who at the drop of a hat will seek Bobs intervention. Even if it is just his owner trying to catch him. It is a fact that "Bobs herd" is the most peaceful herd on the yard.
 
My 6 year old went out into a big mixed herd when we moved to current yard. He is mostly found Bromancing with his 26 year old NF friend & huge 20 year old mates, grooming & chilling. It can work.

Dave avoids the younguns & chills with the old guys. I'm getting him a pipe & slippers for Crimbo.
 
Dave's Mam said:
My 6 year old went out into a big mixed herd when we moved to current yard. He is mostly found Bromancing with his 26 year old NF friend & huge 20 year old mates, grooming & chilling. It can work.

Dave avoids the younguns & chills with the old guys. I'm getting him a pipe & slippers for Crimbo.
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Bob is actively recruiting now for candidates such as Dave.
 
My mare is the youngster in the herd. Herd of 11 and she is 4 years old. The other younger horse is 8 and leaving next week which means her herd will be aged 14 to 26.
My mare is an old soul, she has a general run about and can be silly but I think she livens the oldies up a bit. Her best mates are 23 and 25 and I think being out with older horses has certainly sobered her up and taught her some manners.
The only troublesome one is the 8 year old gelding who is going next week. We're all thankful as he thinks he's a stallion and doesn't do well in herd turnout with mares, but his owner refused to do anything about it till now.

As long as your youngster isn't too boisterous then I think herd turnout will older horses can work very well :)
 
Give it some time and try not to stress. My guys have been in a mixed herd, they were more middle aged, then numerous oldies and then we vet had a 1 year old for a bit and 2-3 year olds. They all figured it out

The issue may be that as he is not a complete baby any more and has been in a herd before, now he is in a different one and feeling a bit more confident he is trying to be more bossy and higher up the pecking order.

In general I like have youngsters with oldies as the oldies normally help them behave!

My my boy joined a herd 7 years ago, in his early teens, he was bullied by one horse for about a month. He would chase him away from the others and threaten him. I was in tears some days as he was not happy (my mare was ok within days!) but in the end him and the bully turned into friends and would play and groom!
 
A 3yo Shetland got introduced to our mixed , mainly older herd. There were shennanigans for a while but they settled down and now he is best buddies with my 29yo and when the weather is bad he shelters under his belly.
 
I suspect the key is space. I've seen very aggressive interactions where no injuries occurred because the horse being attacked could move far away from the attackers, and those gradually settled over time. If horses can get trapped and are being aggressive, I would split them and let them interact over a barrier for much longer.
 
So how long is reasonable to give this to settle? It’s hard not to stress given the behaviour I’ve seen over the past few days (I’m not being dramatic, one particularly could have ended very badly). Other liveries are raising concerns and aren’t happy... I’ve not been in this position before. Space definitely isn’t the issue... 8 horses on 12 acres.
 
If they haven't settled down after two days and there has been one near catastrophe that you've seen I would be taking the youngster out.
 
I turned my just weaned/gelded gelding, approx 11 month old in with two old brood mares, they ran him around for few days, but soon settled.
Now aged 2 he's in with his mum aged 15, and 2 x 8 yr old mares, they mainly ignore him 😂 , one of them will have a tussle with him sometimes but he does regularly have a blast around on his own
 
Stormynight said:
So how long is reasonable to give this to settle? It’s hard not to stress given the behaviour I’ve seen over the past few days (I’m not being dramatic, one particularly could have ended very badly). Other liveries are raising concerns and aren’t happy... I’ve not been in this position before. Space definitely isn’t the issue... 8 horses on 12 acres.
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If its causing issues with other liveries and given you this much cause for concern i'd be pulling mine out.
 
Thanks for the perspectives, I appreciate it.

Said youngster seems to have found his way into the herd - by upping his aggression to the lowest member. It’s odd, as he’s such a sweet boy to handle, and we had no such problems in his old herd, but he really seems to hate the sight of this horse and the others are no longer putting him in his place. Anyway, after an incident last night involving post and rail fencing coming down, separation is happening, with a view to reintroducing in a couple of months...

There was me thinking that group 24/7 turnout for the winter would be nice for him while turned away. Stupid horses.
 
joosie said:
Yes, it can and does work. It sounds like your horse is trying to assert himself and testing his boundaries, and the others are responding to that in a similar way. I have always been a fan of mixed, "natural" herds and am very much of the "leave them to sort themselves out" mentality - which they do, 99% of the time.
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My cob, who was 2 yrs old when she came here, had lived with 2 teenage geldings in her previous home and they had spoiled her. When she got here, my older Westphalian former broodmare, thought that she was bad-mannered and needed putting back in her place. Unfortunately that was easier said than done and we decided that they would have to be separated because if they were in the same field they fought and wouldn't stop even if they fell over!
 
How much space have they got? Militaire did ok in a mixed herd on around 20 acres (that was 20 horses max in summer) but I won't have him out in a smaller space because he can't get out of the way if there are problems. An idiot at one of my old yards turned a big thug of a gelding out in the herd when they were in a smaller space and by the time I'd got to the yard he'd chased M so badly he could barely walk. I've never had mine in a big herd since.
 
SEL said:
How much space have they got? Militaire did ok in a mixed herd on around 20 acres (that was 20 horses max in summer) but I won't have him out in a smaller space because he can't get out of the way if there are problems. An idiot at one of my old yards turned a big thug of a gelding out in the herd when they were in a smaller space and by the time I'd got to the yard he'd chased M so badly he could barely walk. I've never had mine in a big herd since.
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12 acres, between 8 horses. They’re not short of space, and where the fence came down was not in a corner.

Mine isn’t a thug, genuinely - having been turned out with 20+ horses in the time I’ve had him, I’ve never had a problem with him and behaviour. However, this single gelding in this current field seems to be a real target for him, and I’m not quite understanding why (or how to diffuse it). Maybe being over a fence for a longer time will help, I guess time will tell.
 
He will try to find a space in the rankings where he isn't at the bottom. And that could cause issues. We recently introduced a 3yo to a herd of between 14 and 20 years old. Lead mare is bigger than him, and stroppier. He's put the smallest bully in her place though (no bad thing) and two are still to go back in with the others. Usually in our herd, the two at the top of the hierarchy work together, so younger horses get put in their place quite quickly. And the lead mare is very beautiful and very wise, so your average young gelding tends to fall head over heels in love and just follow her around like an adoring puppy!
 
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