# Aggresive gelding hurting new mare



## Goldilocks (Jan 30, 2015)

He is just being a "stallion" totally typical behaviour. My gelding acts more stallion that my actual stallion. 

If there is literally NO way around it i would rug up and put leg bandages on the mare and put her and the herd out and go out with the gelding on a long line until he is not going mad any more.


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## Smilie (Oct 4, 2010)

If the new horse was a gelding I would agree, but I think that aggressive gelding is just acting like a horse will, when a new horse is introduced.
Curious, where is that gelding, far as order, with the rest of your horses? Often, it is the lower down horse that will act the most aggresive to a new horse, not wishing to loose the herd position it now enjoys
What I do, and every spring, I introduced the new yearlings to the main herd, plus the odd other new horse, is to put that new horse out with just one other horse, in turn, while keeping the rest penned up.
Once that rotation is complete, I re -introduce one horse at a time
THey will work out that herd order, given time, and making sure that during this phase, the new horse never has to deal with more than one horse at a time, at first, while learning the fence line, and has room to avoid being cornered


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## 4horses (Nov 26, 2012)

Can you put up a portable electric fence?

I have a mare like that. She doesn't want any other horses near "her" best friend. I gave up on introducing them. The only way she would tolerate the new horse is if I moved her buddy away from the property.

It's been three months and she is finally settling down and accepting that he is in the paddock next door. She was very angry about him being here. Would run up to the fence and double barrel it as hard as she could. I had to put up more electric fencing. Otherwise my fence would be in pieces.

I would not introduce them. I knew someone with a nasty mare. She knocked their gelding on the ground and stood on top of him! Another friend sent me her gelding after he ran her two new horses through the fence.

Horses are capable of killing each other. Do not assume they will work it out. Hobbles will not fix this!


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## djhudson (Sep 9, 2015)

We have owned my older paint gelding for 22 years and have never seen him go after any horse like this before. His behavior really surprised me. He has been herd leader, but not mean. I know he was quite attached to the other older mare that has been 'babysitting' the new arrival, so I don't know if he was jealous that the new horse was with his favorite girl (but she's a mare?). Taking your advice, maybe I should try finding a place to board his old girlfriend for a while and then see if he is willing to play nice with the new mare.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

The horse in my avatar was the strong alpha leader. As he aged, he reached a point that he wasn't so aggressive with his demands.

I brought an 18 month old colt home in 2004, that my alpha horse absolutely would not tolerate. 

Things were great during the time I had the young horse across the fence in a smaller pasture. I had him gelded within a week from bringing him home. I ended up keeping the colt away from my other three for a month.

They were all stalled at night but the colt had my Arab peace keeper in between him and the alpha horse so things stayed quiet.

When I finally turned the colt out with the others, all H*** broke loose when the alpha came at the colt teeth bared. We have 23 acres and I still thought that young horse was going to get run thru the fence. I separated them again.

Like you with your Paint, I had NEVER seen my alpha horse behave this way. It took five months (thankfully I was home nearly every day) of watching them like a hawk and going out on the 4-wheeler to break up the chasing/running/biting incidents, before I could breath easy and know they would behave themselves to where I could safely run a couple hours worth of errands.

Unfortunately I lost the colt in a freak pasture accident a few years later that did not have anything to do with the alpha horse.

A few months after I lost the colt (remember he had been gelded so technically wasn't a colt anymore), I brought home a 12 year old gelding who turned out to be a very passive/non-fighting horse and lowest on the totem pole of four horses.

I kept him separated for about 24 hours, always watching my other horses' reactions. My alpha horse seemed to take to the new guy, so the next day I put him in the main pasture with the others. 

My alpha accepted this new horse like they were longtime acquaintances. Not best friends, mind you but at least friendly, lol lol

*I said all that to say:*

It is possible your new mare is a strong personality and possibly was an alpha mare at some point in her life. Your Paint gelding knows this and is going to fight her whether she shows aggression or not.

I used to see my colt devil the heck out of my alpha horse and the #3 horse who is a bully. Not a day went by the colt wouldn't pick at those two but he left the Peace Keeper Arab alone. He was kind and caring with the very senior Arab. He knew how to pick at the other two without getting himself killed, lol

The colt's picking was so subtle I would have missed it, had I not had horses at home most of my life and knew what I was looking at.

The 12 year old gelding that replaced the colt, never did any of those things. It was obvious all he wanted in this life was to be a part of the herd, always perfectly content to be last in the pecking order. 

I have not been without a horse since I was 12 and I gotta say this horse is the most passive/non-aggressive horse I have ever had in my pasture.

I am sure that is why my alpha horse accepted him into the herd so quickly.

I agree your Paint and the new mare need separated but I don't agree they should be separated to the point he can't see her every day. If you board one of them out, the fights are going to start all over, when the boarded horse comes home, IMO:neutral:


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## djhudson (Sep 9, 2015)

I wanted to report that my 'aggressive gelding' has now had a change of attitude after being left by himself for 10 days in the pasture adjoining the other three horses. This may have been due to loneliness or the fact that the new mare just went into heat and he is now enamored with her. Oh, the fickleness of geldings!! I will continue to monitor the herd but it appears the gelding now has something else on his mind.


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