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Q&A Questions and Answers:
Here are a couple of closely related questions and answers....
Hello,
I have been visiting your website and love it. I have a thoroughbred mare that I have to move due to the current barn owners moving. The place I have picked has only geldings there (4). My mare hangs out with her "girls" now and I wonder if you think she will adjust to the boys or will she be miserable? Do mares need other mares? My horse is playful and spirited but I wonder what this will do to her disposition and will her cycles be affected (I hope not because they are bad enough!) Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
ANSWER #1:
Willy (a gelding) and Fanny both spent years in fields with other geldings and mares without major problems. About the only trouble came when a mare decided that Willy just looked too good to really be a gelding and started getting aggressive toward him. (He would probably have made a good "teaser stud.") Willy would just look at the over-sexed female as if to say, "What's buggin' you, gal?" :o)
In other words, there are some geldings who do seem to affect a mare's hormones, but most do not.
Can you put a stud and gelding together? We have two studs and our oldest one we would keep in a different pen, but now we've got a gelding and don't know if its okay or not to let them be in the same fields together with two mares also.
ANSWER #2:
The best answer I can give you is, "maybe, but I wouldn't recommend it if you can avoid it." Some studs have a disposition that allows them to get along well with any other animal. Most don't.
A case in point: Saturday before last, I was looking at a couple of geldings at a place not far from here. In an adjoining field they had a stud, two geldings and a mare. The four were all siblings and had been raised in the same field since birth. They seemed to get along reasonably well, but when you looked closely at the geldings and mare, they all had scars and wounds that indicated that they had been attacked viciously and often. The damage to their hides, hair color and personalities had dropped their sale values from prices in the thousands of dollars to just a few hundred -- with no takers.
Geldings and mares together shouldn't be a problem, but throw a stud into the mix, and watch out for trouble!
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