Have you ever gelded an older stallion?

[garyo]

We love our 12 year old AMHR bay pinto stallion. He is strong and beautiful. But we are considering looking for a homozygous more refined double registered stallion and gelding him. We had started training him to drive (round pen commands and ground driving, actually hooked him up to a cart but kept a lead person attached) As a stallion he may be a little much to drive. I do not even want to think about what could happen if the driving horse in front of him was a mare in heat. How much do you think his stallion attitude would change if we gelded him? Is it too late?

 

[maestoso]

At our barn we have a 6 year old gelding that was gelded last October. He is now much quieter and low key. However we have some mares coming into heat now and he still tries to mount them. It takes him a little longer and he has to think about it more(As though the knowledge of what to do is slipping away, which is good).

 

[StarRidgeAcres]

I agree with Matt 100%. What he says fits exactly with my personal experience of gelding an older mini (approx 18-20 yrs old when gelded).

 

[Riverdance]

I gelded a 14 soon to be 15 year old stallion last November. He was a very, slam bam .thank you mam kind of stallion with the girls before gelding.

After a month I put him out with about 8 mares for most of the winter. He was fine. Then when I moved some stallions into ajoining pens he tried to fence fight with them, so I moved him to the side yard paddocks where he is with a 5 year old stallion a 2 year old stallion and a gelding. He is doing just fine there. Never tried to fight with the 5 year old stallion.

It does cost a bit more to geld an older stallion as their blood vessels are thicker and they bleed more. I had to leave my stallion at the vets overnight, and still he bled pretty heavy the first few days. It also took him longer to heal then the 3 year old I had done at the same time.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

Its never too late but there are some things to consider. The gelding procedure is a bit riskier for an older stallion who will have more/larger blood vessels and a greater chance of too much bleeding. Given time the lack of hormones to drive him will help his behaviour but there are plenty of gelding who were never allowed to mature who still think they are studly so it does depend on the horse. A rule of thumb I was told is for every year of the stallions age allow one month for him to settle into being a gelding. So a 12 year old stallion would need a full year after the procedure to be consistent in his behaviour. I have a gelding here who was used for a couple of years before being gelded , he's 11 and was gelded at 6 or 7 (not by me) and he is still very inclined to be a dominant horse. Will bully the other boys if they don't stand up to him. If you want to keep him and don't plan to use him as a stud any longer I would go ahead and geld. It will make him more manageable even if he isn't completely mellow.

hehehe I see all this has been said while I typed

 

[Miniv]

Our little guy was about 12 years old when we had him gelded. It took a little longer for the testoserone (sp) to calm down in him, but the procedure went smoothly. He always remained a bit bossy to everyone, but the desire to breed wasn't a part of it. I never was sorry that we gelded him because he was a happier horse afterwards.........one we could put with almost any group. His main problem was having "short man syndrome". (He was 28 inches tall.)

 

[Songcatcher]

I gelded a 19 year old stallion last year. I had bought him for breeding, but learned to my dismay that he was sterile. That didn't stop him from wanting to though. I only used him hand breeding and he would literally run in place and jump straight up and down. In his paddock, he was continually running the fence. After gelding (with no complications at all) he quickly settled down. Still had lots of spirit, but not the "let me go" attitude.

That said, IMO they can all be different. Just because mine or others did well, does not necessarily mean your"s will. Or, just because others had problems doesn't mean your's will.