mares and geldings together

Suejoy

New Member
Mar 8, 2005
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Worcestershire
My daughter's pony who we have had for about 3 months has upto now been very calm and laid back but with the arrival of a new gelding in the field next to his he has become bossy and very protective of the mare who he shares his field with. He has had to be moved to a field with another gelding because the owner of the mare has found it very difficult to catch her mare without our pony causing problems. Do most people keep their mares and geldings seperate? If not how do you avoid the resultant problems of mares in season and geldings fighting over the mares.
 
I have had my two girls fielded with geldings and will not choose to do it again as there were a lot of injuries the geldings were either bullied or thought themselves stallions, my eldest filly was mounted by her gelding companion and was at risk that with penetration she would have been injured never mind the possible back injuries so I won't do it again as I don't feel it is worth the risk.

Mine are fielded beside some geldings at the mo and one keeps trying to mount them over the fence God Help them if he got the fence down.
 
i found i had more problems with mares and geldings kept seperately! when we first got our mare she was kept with 1 other mare and 3 geldings and it was a very happy little herd. when my gelding was in a gelding only field he was forever being injured. i think it does depend on the individual characters of the horses to some extent. some are more protective than others.
 
Mine's has been in both situations- in mixed and separate herds. Just now she is in a mixed herd and we have no problems. But I have had a problem in the past with a particular gelding who would not let me take her in or out of the field. He wasn't nasty in anyway but having an 17hh horse in your way is difficult, it was hard to catch and get her out of the field and he'd always come galloping up to the gate when I was puting her out- making it difficult to get her in the field too. It got to the point where he was always harrassing her and one day she turned round and kicked him, it was really nasty and I felt so guilty about it.

The geldings she is out with now don't really bother her at all, she tends to hang about with the o.a.p actually :D
 
I have 2 mares and 1 gelding in a field together, one of the mares has become the leader, and touch wood!!! not had any problems. But I know lots of livery yards that split the mares and geldings, I think each scenerio is very different, has alot to do with personalities.
 
Dolly's in a mixed herd - 2 geldings and 4 mares. Last year there were 3 geldings and 4 mares - never had a problem :)
 
i have two mares in with bertie and never have major problems although the mares boss him a bit, it is never anything worse that what children would do when playing!!
 
My mare was kept with just mares before she came to me and she is out with a gelding now, we had a few teething troubles in that she bullied him for a bit while she was finding her feet in her new 'boss mare' role but that could of been just because she was so young and inexperienced in acceptable herd behaviour, they soon found their place with each other though and they have settled together now and are very happy living together :)
 
I only keep my horse with another so they have no choice to mix. She's a mare and her companion is a 32 yo gelding. They love each other to bits and no bullying has occured. Perhaps this is just cos Barnaby is old and tired :rolleyes:

The only time I have seen tension is when the foxy gelding in the field immeadiatly opposite came down to flirt with Stumpy when she was in season, and Barnaby came over all jealous and tried 'protecting' what he thought was 'his' mare!

I am a little apprehensive about mixed herds as Stumps has never been in a situation like that - when that day comes I'll guess I will see what she's like.

The opposite livery yard only has one mare, all the others are geldings so mixed sexed herds arent a problem.
 
My mare's been in a mixed herd before and I had no problems although the staff at the yard couldn't catch her.

She's out with gelding at the moment and yesterday, first day out with him, I couldn't get near her as he kept chasing her away, he displayed no agression to me although she did !!

Trying again tonight to catch her.
 
our yard splits them up with geldings and mares separate, though a couple of times i've found him in the mares field (pretending to be a woman! :eek: ) but he seemed to get on better with them than he did with the blokes! :D

but when he went out with some grass liveries, there were two mares, both of which were sort of "owned" by another gelding so ben got a bit beaten up and wouldn't go back out there again, bless him! :(

a lot of the time i think he brings upon himself though.
first time he went out with the geldings (before i got him), he came back a big wound!
i think that he just wants to eat constantly, and if someone is going to deprive him of that joy or if he feels threatened, he'll throw the first kick! :rolleyes:
 
right now we have two geldings and a mare together, and before tahoe when we had milky it was two mares and a gelding. milky was a bit of a problem because she was a bossy little thing, but once the others learned to stay outa her way it was fine. and right now the three of them(tahoe autumn and annabelle) get along great.
 
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