Horses living in a herd enviornment

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horsecrazychick

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Dec 23, 2004
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My horses all live in a small pasture(or a large corral??) attached to a barn for shelter w/ a few stalls. Although we try to get grass growing, it's usually just dirt and a few weeds. It's not huge and grassy, in fact most of it's on a hill, but it's better than stalls, right?

What's the best way to introduce a new horse to our "herd"?(i.e. more dangerous to just throw them in or keep them separated for a while and let them fight over a wood door/pipe corral fencing?)

What's the best thing to do when you have one horse that just terrorizes another?

My poor horse now has a gash several inches long on her back leg, a cut on her neck, and half of her butt/inner thigh swollen and skinned because my sister didn't take the time to find out how her pony is with others before she bought her. The pony literally chases my horse down and charges at her just to bite her and kick her for no reason. For now we have her(the vicious one!) separated and locked up in a pipe corral stall- should we leave her in there?
 
All I can tell you is how we did it, we put Penny in the smaller corral next to the larger with the two boy sin it. She basicly acts like she's in heat all the time so she was putting it on thick for the boys, who were just plain confused.

They didn't do any real damage to each other though. She keep striking w/ her front legs and was striking the metal gate, and it looked to us like she was going to do more damgae trying to get at them than if we let her in with them.

Once in with them they had a lot of mock rearing and pawing and a little charging but not even a real bite or kick.

So see how they do when corraled next door to each other, if it's oaky let them in.
 
Our RI does the same.... put the new horse in a corral next to the herd... usually for a week or so..... let them "get used" to the newbie.... soon enough they will not mind being joined by the newcomer. :)
 
what i call a soft release is usually the best way

I yard first and let the new horse settle then bring others into yard next door and as I see them working it out once they are settled with this I let new horse in.

good luck
Liesl
 
I think that it depends on the field space that you have.

Our fields are HUGE with no real 'danger' points and plenty of space to get away. When Saff went out for the first time we all stood at the gate (the only bottleneck point) and let her go. When they came our way we shooed them off. She was up for it and galloped around like a good un for about 5 minutes with the herd in hot pursuit but one by one they got bored and very soon she was grazing happily on the fringes of the herd. I wish that I'd had a video as it was a stunning display :) There wasn't any kicking or biting, they were just checking out the cocky new girl! I was VERY pleased to see that she didn't kick out!

Others have gone into the herd with very little drama (little did I know that her display would be a taster of things to come ;) ).

I wouldn't, however, suggest that in smaller fields or fields with bottlenecks where they can get 'trapped'.

Having the horses together in the yard is a good idea as is putting them in adjoining fields. You have to assess each situation depending on the herd and the field spaces really.
 
Ok, one last question then...

Which would be worse:
2 horses out at pasture standing butt-to-butt and kicking each other
or 2 horses doing the same thing, on opposite sides of a fance(yes, they may not be able to make contact w/ each other, but would putting a leg thru a wood door or getting a hoof caught between pipe rails be worse??)
 
Are they butt to butt because they have nowhere to go away from each other?

Reason I ask is that horses are very territorial when there's a newcommer. And if there isn't enough room for the victim to avoid the aggressor they'll beat each other up.

When I got Ariel, she was introduced to 3 new horses in a huge field; no problem.
A month or so later I brought her & my other mare Heidi home in a small turnout area (20m X 30M approx) and they were constantly & viciously attacking each other.

As soon as the ground was thawed about three months later, I was able to enlarge the area almost double and the fighting subsided because now there was more room to avoid the aggressor. It was just too close for comfort with them.

Either way, from what you're asking: both situations are dangerous.

Could you not put a solid partition to close off the pipe fence?
 
Well we do have stalls that we could put the horse in, but they're just small stalls and the horse couldn't be kept in there w/o turn-out for very long. We have had a horse put a foot thru the wall once, and the horse that I'm looking at buying hasn't ever been in an inside stall. eek.

Here's how the barn's set up: We have a rectangular paddock about.. no idea really, maybe a half acre big? and inside there's a small barn(L-shaped) w/ 3 inside stalls and a tack room. One stall can't be used(full of junk, unfortunately) and the other is left open(door removed) for the horses to go in and out. It also has a small over-hang for shelter. Then there's an added normal sized pipe-corral-stall opposite the barn, but also inside the paddock. Right now my sister's pony(the really mean one that's just vicious w/ the others) is kept inside the pipe-corral and the other 2 are turned out. (one horse is already leaving and 2 eventually will be coming in, so we will have a total of 4.) Also the paddock is on a hill, w/ a flat level on top and a falt level on bottom. So it's pretty big and the horse could get away, but it seems a lot smaller than it is and there are corners that they could get trapped in...

I know a bigger paddock would be better, but we really don't have room to expand the paddock and our property is too hilly.
 
hey here's another idea-
What about introducing the horses one at a time in a large oval arena? That would be pretty safe, right? Once each one has met the newcomer in the arena, it shouldn't be such a big deal when the newcomer is put in the paddock w/ them.
OR- our entire back yard is about 10 acres fenced in, w/ all the hills and things around the house it wouldn't be safe to turn them all out, but we could put the new horse in the big arena or the roundpen and turn the others out to go check out the new horse- that way they wouldn't be able to get him if he stepped away from the fence.
 
Half an acre for that many horses is pretty small. What's the measurement in feet?
1 Acre equals 43560 square feet. Which would mean your horses are roughly kept on 21780 sq ft., that's like the size of 2.5 arenas the size of 20mX40m.

So right now there's your mare (1) + 1 horse & 1 pony? So 3 equines? Or is it your mare + 2 horses + the pony?

What about sectioning off the paddock? Which equine is threatning your mare? The pony only? If so, can you put a sheet board up on the pipe fence?

If you can section off your turnout area, that could leave an area between the pony & the others. If there's 2 horses + your mare why not pair the one that does get along with her, in a sectioned off area, and keep the other horse in between them 2 & the pony.

I have electric rope as fencing & Ariel has run Heidi through it. But now that they have a bit more space, about an acre, Heidi can keep a safe distance when Ariel gets in a bullying mood.
 
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Honestly I don't really know at all how big it is, that's just my best guess. Yes, compared to some 20 acre pastures it's tiny, but compared to living in a tiny indoor stall all day, it probably seems like heaven. My parents seem to have this idea that we could have 20 horses living comfortably in there if we wanted to!(0.0) Oh and they think that it's cruel to keep a horse in a small indoor stall.

We have 3 horses total: my mare, my sister's pony, and a QH. The QH will be leving soon and sometime or another we will get 2 more horses, then that will be it. So there will be a total of 4 eventually. Right now the pony is being kept in the pipe corral stall, since she doesn't get along w/ ANY other horses.

It would be pretty near impossible to section off the pasture because we only have one shelter and only one gate. None of the horses use the shelter of course, but it wouldn't be right to force any of them to stand in the sun/rain 24/7.
 
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