# What Can I Do About a Pasture Bully?



## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

How long has he been in with your herd?


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## Snookeys (Sep 23, 2010)

I'm glad this came up, because I have two horses that have the same problem. Subbing!


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## kimber769 (Aug 11, 2010)

smrobs said:


> How long has he been in with your herd?


4 months


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## mliponoga (Jul 24, 2010)

It definitely helps to establish dominance with him showing that there is someone above him, but that can only go so far. My mare is the same way and the other horses have just learned to stay out of her way. But I walk in the pasture and she instantly knows who the boss is.


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## AlexS (Aug 9, 2010)

I hate to disagree but the pasture dominance only works when you are there. Which is not enough, there is a herd pecking order, and there is nothing you can do about that when you are not there, as it happens. 


In my experience, you can either leave the horse alone and let him deal with it, or you can move him to a single paddock and field. My gelding is few brain cells and stands still while being bitten. So we moved the herd and put him with the lowest and he still was the lowest and did the same thing. I just moved him to a paddock where he is the only horse, but can see others during the day and now he is flipping out at night when they are not there. 

I would move him into a herd with more dominants and if not, then you need to move him or accept that he just does not get along.


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## kimber769 (Aug 11, 2010)

AlexS said:


> I hate to disagree but the pasture dominance only works when you are there. Which is not enough, there is a herd pecking order, and there is nothing you can do about that when you are not there, as it happens.
> 
> 
> In my experience, you can either leave the horse alone and let him deal with it, or you can move him to a single paddock and field. My gelding is few brain cells and stands still while being bitten. So we moved the herd and put him with the lowest and he still was the lowest and did the same thing. I just moved him to a paddock where he is the only horse, but can see others during the day and now he is flipping out at night when they are not there.
> ...


I only have 5 horses and really don't have the room to separate the bully from the others. If he was just chasing them around it wouldn't be so bad but he is seriously going after them! He means business, he has drawn blood several times and has tried cornering my mare and she has gone through the fence to escape him. I guess my only option is to rehome him? Anybody interested in a 5 year old Appendix gelding lol?


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## WickedNag (Sep 7, 2010)

I have a small herd and learned from my last experience that I will only have mares or geldings together. In my case we had two geldings so sold the mare and got another gelding and finally the pasture is at rest


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## Speed Racer (Oct 21, 2009)

I had an extremely dominant and horse aggressive gelding. He could only go out with a select few horses his entire life, because he was evil. Loved people, had very little tolerance for most of his own kind. Like your guy, he meant business when he went after another horse.

This isn't something you can train out of him. If you can't separate him, then you need to sell him with full disclosure. Otherwise, one or more of your horses is going to wind up severely hurt.

I was lucky; I had the means to keep Conny separated from others for their own good. If you don't have that option, he needs to go.


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## mliponoga (Jul 24, 2010)

AlexS said:


> I hate to disagree but the pasture dominance only works when you are there. Which is not enough, there is a herd pecking order, and there is nothing you can do about that when you are not there, as it happens.


As I said it only goes so far, my mare is still very dominant, but it has helped a small bit in my case, and seen it in other cases. But I also integrate into the heard for a couple hours per day, chase them around, play follow-up games with them, etc. So it's not just me walking in and out of the pasture grabbing one of them out.


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## Indyhorse (Dec 3, 2009)

I'm a firm believer that horses need to sort their own pecking order issues out. While there are certainly exceptions (such as SpeedRacer's Conny mentioned above) I find the more you try to get involved or dictate the herd order, the more you prolong problems in the pasture. Some horses are by nature status seekers and dominant, while others are followers and more submissive. My herd never had a problem until I added several more horses. Monty, my rescue hackney pony, who is a very dominant little guy, Stiffler, who is submissive to the extreme, but attached himself to Monty so was therefore"guilty by association" in the eyes of my dominant pasture horse, Claymore. It threw a big wrench in my pasture order for about 2-3 months, there were a lot of scuffles, and Stiffler and Monty were both sporting a good number of superficial bites and scrapes. It actually settled down with the addition of 2 more mares to the pasture, and Monty getting over his David/Goliath issues. My pasture is now relatively quiet again, but we still have occasional food squabbles and two mares (Rain and Freyja) who are still going back and forth over the lead mare position. 

Since you don't have the facilities to separate, to my mind you have 2 options - wait it out and see if they can organize themselves, or send the aggressive horse on down the road. Good luck with whatever you choose to do!


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

Yep, you already got the advice I was going to give from SR and Indy. If he had been there for a very short amount of time, I was going to suggest giving him more time but 4 months should have been long enough for them to sort out a pecking order. Yep, you can either find a way to separate him or you need to let him go for the safety of the other horses.


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## Redial (Oct 1, 2010)

haven't read the reply's so I may be repeating things, but unless the horse is in with show horses that need to be pretty all the time and there's a chance of his marking them let him get over it. If you're worried you can always hot tape a section of the pasture just for him and rotate the area so that he can get new graze. I did that for oen mare that was intent on scarring every other horse int he paddock and 2 weren't mine.


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## Horse Love (Jun 9, 2015)

I am having the same problem, another persons gelding is fighting with my gelding to the point I have put my gelding in a safe area as I dont know what to do, he has a cut above his eye, coronet and swelling on his lower leg. Im keeping him in there for a few days in the hope the other horse gets over it.


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## Palomine (Oct 30, 2010)

How big is the pasture and has he had testosterone levels checked?

May be studdy.


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## arabbarrelracer (Jun 2, 2015)

My gelding does the same thing. He is horrible to all the horses so I don't turn him out with them.
He was running horses all over the field chasing, biting, kicking and almost ran a few horses threw the fence.

So stays by himself. He stays in his stall, gets lunged twice a day and if I can't lunge him I will turn him out in the round pen over night. During the late afternoon I hand graze him or turn him in my front yard to mow a little before evening feeding.

Trust me my horse gets a lot of working time, and it keeps him busy.


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## Purplelady (Dec 6, 2014)

Hello . I know how you,s all feel my horse my horse is still in because he was fighting with another horse and that is about 2 if not 3 months he was let out but done it again so in and he only gets out by him self for a good while . The owners are great and know he can be a so and so .hope you can get things fixed out . Bye Purplelady
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

From what the OP has described, it sounds like he's not the aggressor but telling others to stay away. A bully will seek out a horse and go after it.


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## ChitChatChet (Sep 9, 2013)

I had a donkey once that would beat up another one of my donkeys.

By watching I learned that the donkey getting beat up knew how to take care of the problem but need a tool to do so.

About once a month I would put a rope halter that a had a chain under the chin. The donkey getting beat up would grab that chain and give the other donkey the what for. Leading him around, yank him down when he would rear up etc.

All of that to say you just never know what will work for settling hash. 

We have a bully pony right now. He is much better when he is made to tow the line. If left alone without human interaction for too long he will treat his pasture mate worse. So dd works him daily.


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## Speed Racer (Oct 21, 2009)

Zombie thread!!!! RAWWRRR!!!! :dance-smiley05:


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