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Opinions wanted. Pasturing gelding with mare

H

hiptfarms

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Apr 20, 2010
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What do y'all think about pasturing a gelding with a mare? I had a saddlebred gelding living alone and recently bought a Suffolk mare. Things have been back and forth with them. Mostly the mare is in charge unless she's in season. She has given him some pretty good bites and is usually willing to whirl around and try a kick if he gets too far out of line. I'm concerned that when I separate them for working soon
they will have a fit. Took him out to try on my new saddle and she was definately NOT happy.

Any advice on seperating them for working? Do you keep your mares seperated from geldings? A friend of my has been giving me flack about putting them together.

Thanks
 
I'm not so sure that's a mare gelding thing as much as a horse/horse thing. We've always found when there are only two horses, they get attached. It's just the way it is. They are herd animals.

You have to just be in charge when you separate them, and the first few times could take some effort if they're herdbound. Be consistent, and separate them every once in a while just for the sake of doing it, even if you don't need to work one or the other. The more you take them apart, the easier it will be.
 
I have always heard and then learned through first hand experience that the mare is the boss. Even in wild herds it is a mare that is the leader, not the stud like people think. Here on our place, we keep the mares and geldings seperate. The mares will most certainly lay down the law. I know of several ranches around here, that when done breeding will turn the stud out with the geldings. The stud doesn't do near the damage that turning a mare out will do. This, mind you is just my opinion that I've formed through first hand experience and things I've seen. Sometimes a goat will make a good companion animal.
 
Thanks for the advice. It's been so danged hot, humid, and dry here that I'll admit that plowing and riding have been real far down
my list of late. It's a shame when you have to pray for a tropical storm for rain:) and when 95 is considered a cool day. Hopefully august will be less like august usually is. We've already had two months of august weather as it is.
 
BAR BAR 2 said:
I have always heard and then learned through first hand experience that the mare is the boss. Even in wild herds it is a mare that is the leader, not the stud like people think. Here on our place, we keep the mares and geldings seperate. The mares will most certainly lay down the law. I know of several ranches around here, that when done breeding will turn the stud out with the geldings. The stud doesn't do near the damage that turning a mare out will do. This, mind you is just my opinion that I've formed through first hand experience and things I've seen. Sometimes a goat will make a good companion animal.
Click to expand...

Sometimes a goat will make a good companion animal.[/quote]

That's what Haymaker has been telling us for years. :shock: :lol: :lol:
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
BAR BAR 2 said:
I have always heard and then learned through first hand experience that the mare is the boss. Even in wild herds it is a mare that is the leader, not the stud like people think. Here on our place, we keep the mares and geldings seperate. The mares will most certainly lay down the law. I know of several ranches around here, that when done breeding will turn the stud out with the geldings. The stud doesn't do near the damage that turning a mare out will do. This, mind you is just my opinion that I've formed through first hand experience and things I've seen. Sometimes a goat will make a good companion animal.
Click to expand...

Sometimes a goat will make a good companion animal.
Click to expand...

That's what Haymaker has been telling us for years. :shock: :lol: :lol:[/quote]

:lol: :lol: :lol:
 
We pasture our Geldings and Mares together… They all seem to learn the pecking order after the first week or so.
 
I have not had any issue as far as mares and geldings together. I had a friend that would put the stallions with geldings so that the stallion learned manners, he would come out of that patch more humble for sure. Herd bound horses happen, be it gelding or mare, had one mare that would walk herself to death if you took her out of the herd and put her by herself.

Good Luck, and I am soooo glad I am up NORTH right now, went home a week ago(East Texas) and the humidity was horrid. I am working in Colorado now, when I left it was in the 70s and now it has been getting up to a 100 here and with the rains makes it almost as bad as HOME.

East Tx Gal .... now in Greeley, CO..wishing was back up in Douglas, WY ...
 
I use to turn my yearling STUD colts out with the BRED Mares - Bred Mares can really teach Studs (Make Gentlemen Out Of Them) - Two of the Stud I raised that way were great Pasture Breeders (I'd handle them for most out-side Mares) But if someone had a mare they were having a Hard Time getting covered - I'd just turn them out with one of these Studs - in a few hours of Four-Play they'd have them "Squatting and Peein"...

Proud-Cut gelding are best kept with other Geldings but I've never had troubles with gelding that were Cut-Right...

Hi Dawana - Your getting around.
 
We have over 30 horses on the form (not knowing the exact number makes me happier), but about 2/3 of those are running together as a herd. It's amazing taking an animal out of a pampered environment and allowing it to be part of the herd, a transformation takes place and they learn to be a real horse. They learn social skills that they never had before.
 
Geldings and mares pasture together just fine. Of course, strange horses of any sex when first put together will have some issues to sort out, but they will get it figured out.
Lots of people run geldings, mares and studs together year round with little to no trouble out of the ordinary.
 
We got about twenty head in one bunch out with the mature cows-there's 6 studs out there-the boss cat just runs off the four younger ones and they stay off to the side aways. We've got some geldings in with another bunch of mares with no problems.
 
Well it's been 13 weeks now since I put the two together and she is still kickin his butt. She was living with 4 mules before and maybe they're just smarter than my gelding. Or, maybe he just can't
quite get the message that she is in charge but she sure has given him some good wounds. She bit the fool out of him a couple weeks ago - bites the size of grapefruits (she is a draft horse) with the hair taken off! She's kicked him in the chest several times and he seems to finally be learning not to walk up behind her. You'd think a goofy 950 lb gelding would eventually learn that the 1745 lb mare IS in charge. I guess he's just a slow learner! Meanwhile I've cleared the land for the barn and am trying to brave the 107 degree heat index. It really is the humidity that's so bad.
 

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