Gelding confusion

[My girls]

Hi Everyone, what is a good age to geld. I have a nine month old colt I would like to geld as soon as I can. I have 5 mares and don't want any accidents.

Plus my colt is going to finish out at about 36" and 3 of my mares are 28"-30", they are separated but with heat season I want to take care of this. I

keep checking my colt and so far only one has dropped. What if the other doesn't drop, can he still be gelded? At what age should both have dropped?

I worried if he doesn't or can't be gelded that he will always have to been separated from the rest. I don't want any of my girls bred, like I said 3 are

to small, 1 is his mother and the other is 20 yrs old. Please if anyone has any info about gelding I would appreciate it.

Thanks Nancy

 

[minimomNC]

Sometimes they are both there but you can't feel them. I would have your vet check to make sure. You can geld at anytime and yes, if the second one hasn't dropped, you have surgery done. It will cost more of course but gets the job done.

 

[Minimor]

Sometimes they're both there and you just cannot feel both; sometimes the 2nd one is close by (in the ring) and a good vet will be able to get it in a normal gelding procedure--other vets aren't as good at fishing it out of the ring & will tell you that the horse is a crypt & will cost a lot more to geld. I have found that in most cases these latter ones do drop the 2nd one if given a bit more time. I do like to wait them out so that I don't have to pay more money for the surgery. I've had one that didn't have the 2nd one down at 10 months, by 12 months both were there. Another didn't drop his 1st one until he was 18 months old, with the 2nd one not appearing until he was a full 2 years old.

Here I pay $70 for a routine gelding procedure, and $300 for the crypt surgery. I know some vets in other areas charge a lot more; I've heard $150 to $350 for regular gelding and $1500 and up for the crypt surgery. I prefer to not have to pay the difference between $70 and $300, so if I had to pay the $1500 for the crypt surgery I sure would be waiting it out and hope I could get by with just the regular procedure by the time the horse is 1 or 2 years old.