We are not inexperienced in the stallion business, our other stallion was "naturally" raised. He is very social and lives among his family amiably and is a complete pleasure to deal with. Our new stallion is a very large TB stallion of impressive ancestry and extreme neglect. This stallion has never been neglected in his health care or feed regime, but, he has been severely neglected socially. He has never been allowed to be near other horses except for breeding and was not even used to tease the mares he has been breeding.
He is now living in a run in type of arrangement, with a small grass paddock and horse on one side of him. We are still interviewing candidates, for a horse that has a calming influence on him.The problem is that he is 17HH and 1500lbs and is 9 years old. I would like to put another animal in with him, to help him socialize but I worry about him hurting this other horse dramatically. I have thought of putting a draft mare in with him, (a crossbred foal would be fine with us) or possible a draft molly mule. Does anyone have any other suggestions? He is not difficult to handle daily but requires two handlers to breed. He does not savage his mares, he just expects to breed them in extremely short order. We are working on ground collection andbasic manners. I still think proper socialization will be the key. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
I have two stallions and one of them was quite aggressive with other horses and did not respect the personal space of his people either. I turned him out with two big Clyde/TB mares that a friend had which he proceeded to breed (the friend wanted the foals) and then when the mares finished their heat cycles they proceeded to teach him manners, mare style! He was quite humbled and was much better for us to deal with as well. I think with more than one mare, the girls watch out for each other and he was put in his place in short order. I had him out with them for two weeks 24/7.
Turning a stallion out with a mare[s] to learn manners can work well. Or it can result in a broken leg, damage to the mare[s] and/or huge vet bills. There's no real way to tell how it will turn out until it's done.
The decision to do it or not will depend to a great extent upon the value of the animals and how much risk one is willing to take. It's not what we recommend...
I apologize in advance, this is very, very long. One cup of coffee coming up!......
As what Jos said, it can be a very good experience, or it can be a bad one. He summed it up in a few simple words. I have a long-story to share which provided a most suitable outcome, and a shorter story that was an ultimate disaster.
Before you do anything, choose your mares carefully, ones who are well known to each other and who get along very well and have their herd organization firmly settled. The mares must be very familiar to you and be easy to catch at a moment's notice. Make sure you have properly assessed this stallion's attitudinal dominance correctly. You want mares who are particular and emphatic about who gets to touch them and for what reason, but who are also not mean about it.
You also have to remember - a stallion can also take a hate-on for a mare and then you'll end up with a dead mare because she has nowhere to run and get away from him and he will run her down, knock her over, stomp on her and kill her. I've seen that happen too. In our modern management, we have smaller pastures. There are not miles and miles of grassland for her to run away. If he doesn't like her and runs her off, she will try very hard to do what he demands and goes as far away as possible, but the fence prevents her from going away far enough and he'll get angrier and angrier, because he sees it as "she's not leaving!" and she can do nothing but run as fast as she can to the point of exhaustion and inevitably, if he is more fit than her which is most probably the case, he'll just finish her off. It's not a pretty sight to see and you had better have a 50-gallon/per minute water canon on hand just in case you need to drive him off so you can safely get the mares out. (Leave him in there until the mares are gone, wait for him to settle down a few hours before attempting to catch him, and then when he is good and calm again, go in and quietly catch him and put him in his own pen again).
That is the worst case scenario. It is rare, but it can and does happen. Don't ever put yourself between an enraged stallion and the target of his anger - you will get hurt or killed. Always use a powerful water cannon to drive the stallion off because most stallions cannot withstand a 50-gallon-per minute high PSI cannon. One person aims the cannon on him steadily and the other person gets the mares outta there and quickly and completely out of his sight.
At a European Hanoverian stud farm I was working at 20 years ago, one of the stallions jumped a 7-1/2 foot solid wall just because he felt like visiting the ladies. I watched him do it, standing next to the owner, Joseph, and both of us had our jaws hit the dirt. He just seemed to pop over it from nearly a stand-still. Utterly unbelievable to watch! He then proceeded to gallop across the 1000 meter dividing grass space to the mare herd, and popped over their 5 foot fence like it was mere cavaletti.
Boss mare of the field happened to be the stud's mother. She saw him coming (his attitude was "hey-hey-hey ladies, look at me, I'm THE KINGand my feet are gold, my mane of diamonds! Mmm-mmmm don't you all just look FINE today!! Come and GET IT!" And mare went, "Oh yeah? I DONT THINK SO BUSTER! I'm the Queen around here and you are to bow to me!" The first thing she did was ordered her mares into the farthest corner, then charged at him, ears flattened, jaws wide open and barred, and she smashed her two front hooves right into his neck and shoulder. Nearly knocked him right off his feet, despite the fact he was 5 inches taller than she was. She then proceeded to bite-kick drive him to the farthest corner of the field and pinned him there against the fence - it was electrified, but he was so terrified of her, he stood there getting zapped periodically and preferred the zapping to her punishment! Every time he moved even an inch out of her designated zone, he got nailed. She pinned him there the whole time while Joseph and I ran, first for help with other handlers, and then all us went for the field. One man went to the water cannon not too far from where the stud was (although we never needed it, ultimately). Stud saw us coming and started yelling - you've never seen a stallion so desperate to get the heck outta there, neighing at us, pleading to come save him, "These mares are crazy, get me outta here!!". She wasn't being overly mean, just was being rather emphatic about the designated space he was allowed to step foot into. He was a 5-year-old who, quite frankly, we weren't feeling particularly sorry for because he had entered their field with the wrong attitude and thus was being appropriately disciplined for his poor behaviour! But as soon as I got in there with the halter (I was his usual handler), he ran for me. Mare knew she had done her job for the day and let him go. He practically put the halter on by himself and was rather pushy-pully with me to get out of the field which promptly got him in trouble with both me and Joseph for being poorly behaved with us! Poor boy, he was getting the what-for from all sides. Never was he so grateful to be back in his own pen, a little bruised for his experience (ego more than anything) but otherwise nothing too serious. hahahaha That was not the end of his day, however. I decided that after that escapade, he needed some good old fashioned HARD WORD and boy did he get worked and I mean really worked! Both he and I were utterly exhausted by day's end. Stud was rather humble and meek and very much so minding his P's and Q's. You said jump and he said, "sure thing, how high would you like it?" You said move, and it was "yes ma'am, right away ma'am". Now, that's a polite stallion.
His mother-mare was an exceptionally good one. She was well socialized and knew proper etiquette and her foals were exceptionally well behaved critters. She was extremely dominant and ran her mare herd exceptionally well. She liked a well-behaved, orderly, quiet herd and bickering was not tolerated. Another mare was NOT allowed to boss another mare's foal and the foals quickly learned to run to the inner circle at her loud snort. It was a most AMAZING herd to watch and learn animal psychology from. This is how it is supposed to be!
This episode got Joseph thinking and the next day I arrived to work to see Joseph leading this stallion to the mare pen...the stallion balking the whole way "No, no, please, no, not THERE! Please, I'll do anything, please, but not there!" LOL But Joseph, being European, was determined this stallion was going to learn some manners and insisted. Well, he got beat up for a week or two, and when he was sufficiently humbled, he was allowed to graze on the perimeter of the mare herd. If he got too snotty with one of the lesser mares, boss mare drove him off. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Took her about about 3 weeks to snap him into shape, but he became socialized, gentlized, and perfectly well mannered. He was better to handle from our perspective too. Now whether that was from being beaten up by the mares and learning some real manners, or whether it was because he was living in true horsey-heaven with buddies and friends in a socialized herd, I'm not sure, perhaps a bit of both. All the mares were pregnant, so there was never a chance for the stud to breed, but it was a lesson he never forgot. After that, Joseph decided it was the new farm policy to always throw the studs in with the pregnant mares to get beaten up and learn their manners, and so we threw the other 3-year-old and yearling studs (individually, of course), in with the mares to get beat up for a while and each one was mannerized as boss-mare saw fit. She was much more patient, but no less empathic, about the rules with the yearling than with the older studs. She expected more appropriateness from the older studs at a faster pace. Once everyone was properly mannerized, then the studs were rotated through daily. Everyone was happier than clams in mud.
I learned wonderful things at that particular farm. I have since then mimicked my farm's management to that one. The boys get to rotate through the pregnant mare herd so everyone gets some "out time" and "big pasture time" and learns to get along socially, but my boys learn this right from baby-hood. I would be very cautious about doing it with a stallion you did not raise and who was already in middle-life adulthood and used to being in solitary confinement. Be very cautious and well prepared should things not go well.
Right now, I only have one gelding who is cryptorchid and one very young stud colt, so they are on one side of the farm. The gelding (who is treated as if he were a stallion) is very dominant and can be bossy, but at the same time, he is very firm, albeit kind, to the youngster, so they can go in together. This situation is regularly assessed to see if it is still appropriate. Things can change as youngster starts to grow up! Friendships can disappear overnight when hormones and the ultimately all-powerful drive to breed comes in to play.
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