young stallion behavior

I had an incident the other day with our intact little guy. I was getting bitten, and so, I wanted to make him back up, we were just hanging out, no halters or harness. I gave him a slap on the spot where the shoulder meets the neck, told him no, and then stepped in, and tried to get him to back up.

He reared up on his hind legs, and he was not kidding around. I was close and directly in front of him, so his head is going left and right trying to keep me in focus or something, it was spooky. He was standing on his hind legs with his front legs up, something like a boxer pose.
He's usually the one, of the two, that comes over to me, 9 times out of 10, with no prompting to greet and check me out.

we've got a few days to mull it over, but the vet is coming to castrate him after the holiday weekend.

It would have been great to have all the pedigree information that I was looking for a few weeks ago. I know we dont really have the room to separate them very well. and still I'm feeling unsure, because what if he's got great genetics or something. he's the one on the right in my photo.

When he rears up just plow right into him. Make yourself as big as a bear. Roar. The rearing up is standard stallion behavior.

I understand about your concern whether to geld if you think he is worth keeping as a stallion. Can't be undone. If he does not have his papers, IMHO, I would not consider breeding him. Foals are cute, but they live a long time and one must consider his responsibility to the horse world and to any foals he produces.

It's tough to keep stallions and mares apart, and the stallion is usually stressed out at the separation. If you want to enjoy the two and see them as companions, gelding is the only way.

Ready for my rant that will probably offend 98% of the horse industry?

There is absolutely no way to determine if any horse has 'good genetics.' The equine genetic industry is in the Stone Age compared to other livestock.

Take my cows. We can genomic test them. That's when the amino acids on the gene sequence are analyzed; and they are linked to certain traits with a 70% or greater reliability. For example, an adenine here means this bulls daughters will give more milk.

Why is it so accurate? There's a large genetic group of willing producers to take samples from. There are literally thousands of daughters - sometimes over 10,000 analyzed from one bull, then it's said what his offspring will be, and he's called genetically superior or inferior. If he's inferior, he rides the burger bus. No one needs 'on more son' or anything along those lines. If the daughters are no good they too ride the burger bus and don't make more. Genetic progress in cattle is obscenely fast. I have 50 or so bulls in my tank bouncing in my truck right now - I can make an awesome mating with accurate info with any almost any cow.

Now take horses - a prolific well known stud might have 100 foals. He is determined genetically superior because he wins - aka in the OPINION of the judges he is pretty. No other traits considered. If 10 of his offspring are lucky enough to be nice, and wind up on fancy farms that are promoted well, he's called an awesome stud. Even if the other 90 are disgusting looking.

But - those nasty foals are now considered genetically superior, because their daddy and some siblings dos well for the judges. Because there's no market for culls in the equine industry; some breeders pass them on the the first sucker that thinks they have the next big son of that stud and breeds him over and over. ("Oh his stifles lock all the time, but his daddy was Bob and his brother was Joe and he's got a great personality so I won't geld him!")

And the cycle continues. Culls are passed on the suckers, some sold as pets from the good breeders, and some wind up going from person to person to person before Mexico. It's sad really.

Then there's cows - culls go to feed people. A sad but noble fate. Horse culls aren't culls until they go to Mexico. Until the my hey are here in the gene pool.

There's just not the volume, the funding behind the technology, or the cooperation from the industry to even find the truly genetic superior animals. Not to mention everyone breeds for something different, there's no consistent way to measure genetic superiority. In cows, we pretty much breed for longevity, milk, and fertility which can be measured with hard numbers. Horses we breed for pretty. And what's pretty is determined by opinions.

Bad behavior (rearing, biting, kicking) must be corrected swiftly and firmly - you have 3 seconds to correct him. Rearing is dangerous and I do not tolerate that kind of behavior with any of my horses. Miniatures are cute but they can still hurt you. I would geld him, but I'm not sure that will correct the biting / rearing problems....

Whenever we have had a mini stud rear on us, we make them back up.

None of our stallions, young or old, have ever reared on us loose. They get the same treatment as my APHA stallion.

Our younger senior stallion (5 or 6) has started thinking too much with his testicles this last month. We have one last mare to breed and he is the only one we can breed to her. Both small and he is the most refined. He was trying to bite, rearing, getting too aggressive with the mare (we hand breed), and overall just too amped. I switched his web halter out for a rope halter. Everytime he acts up, back we go. Horses are not found of backing, so make them back up for a few feet. Wildfire is starting to figure out that bad rehavior doesn't let him do what we wants, breed. I keep on him until he settles down and walks up to the mare nicely, than he is allowed to breed.

For someone who is new to Miniatures, I'd have him gelded. Until you have more experience, your colts behavior is going to get someone injured. You two are not going to enjoy each other if you become scared to handle him and he has no human interaction.

Concentrate on getting him settled down and your mare back to a descent weight. He can breed her at this age and her extreme weight is not healthy.

Have you watched your mare when she is correcting his bad behavior? She wollops the tar out of him with both back feet-HARD. You have now let him be at the top of your pecking order and you have some work ahead of you to put you back in first place - otherwise he will seriously hurt you or others. The others are right. The 3 second rule is very true, and you have to come totally unglued and treat him just like the mare does when he misbehaves. If I'm dealing with a boy with some nasty habits, I never work with them loose....they are always on a halter and lead and believe me, I am in control. If they go up, I put that rope over their nose....next time they go up I jerk the heck out of that nose and beller like a witch from he11. I make them back up (they see this as punishment). If they do it again, we go through the routine all over again...and again...and again. When they behave nicely, I immediately end the lesson. Always end on a good note. Remember....if he gets away with it 3 times, it is a learned behavior and you will have a VERY VERY hard time correcting it later. And you are doing a good thing by having him gelded.

Everyone above has given you great advice. It is good you are thinking about gelding him. I have had several ponies and minis that were not gelded until they were well into adulthood and they had some really negative behaviors established that were hard to correct. Biting, striking and things like that. You will have a much happier little guy if he is gelded. Especially if you are to keep him with the mare.