Running Stallions together?

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I hate it when a horse is by themselves.....so we avoid that situation if at all possible.

We pasture breed. So our senior herd stallions always have at least one mare with them, and if it works out, they have more.......

Our young stallions and colts are split up into three small groups right now. There is an aggressive stallion group, a more docile stallion group, and a colt group.........and so far so good.........The important thing that we did was to "test the waters" with each personality. You need to be right there and watching to decide what is best for your horse. This is IMPORTANT.

We have NEVER put our breeding senior stallions together, INTENTIONALLY. That just does not work, no matter what time of year it is...........And we had a horrible accident occur to prove it. I will probably NEVER get over this.........

Last winter we pulled our top senior stallion to the barn/paddock area for each night to give him time to chow down. He was 28.5 inches, 21 years old, and had dropped some weight. And every morning he was turned back out with his few girls...... A family came to visit and went through the paddock during the day, but what we didn't see was that a connecting gate was not fastened properly. (Now I feel it was our fault for not checking the latch, but at the time we made some wrong assumptions with the family because we knew them to be horse owners.) On the OTHER side of the gate was another stallion.......a younger herd stallion and just big enough (31 inches and medium boned) to kick some butt....... plus he had his group of mares.......

At some point during the night the gate was opened and the two stallion met. The end result I really don't want to relive. The younger stallion had a few bites, cuts, and abrasions...........Our senior stallion did not make it. We literally pulled him into our kitchen to doctor on him before the vet arrived........but he was gone the next day.........

That is our experience...........WE will never put two senior herd stallions together.......even in winter. Losing our boy that way was losing a member of the family........Won't even go there again..........
 
My stallion runs alone every other year since that's how often I have foals. I've thought about getting a 3rd mare just so he alway has company, but that's not a good enough reason for me to add another foal to the world. He seems content enough--and is always pastured beside them--can always see them--and he can groom with the fillies through a gate.... but I'd rather he had a buddy on the off years. My thought was IF one of my mares has a colt next year (never had one yet) I might geld him asap and wean him with my stallion--and have them be together only when the stallion isn't with mares. Once Jazz is breeding, the gelding would be pastured elsewhere.

But after reading this... I'm not sure if I want to try it.
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I hate it when a horse is by themselves.....so we avoid that situation if at all possible.
We pasture breed. So our senior herd stallions always have at least one mare with them, and if it works out, they have more.......

Our young stallions and colts are split up into three small groups right now. There is an aggressive stallion group, a more docile stallion group, and a colt group.........and so far so good.........The important thing that we did was to "test the waters" with each personality. You need to be right there and watching to decide what is best for your horse. This is IMPORTANT.

We have NEVER put our breeding senior stallions together, INTENTIONALLY. That just does not work, no matter what time of year it is...........And we had a horrible accident occur to prove it. I will probably NEVER get over this.........

Last winter we pulled our top senior stallion to the barn/paddock area for each night to give him time to chow down. He was 28.5 inches, 21 years old, and had dropped some weight. And every morning he was turned back out with his few girls...... A family came to visit and went through the paddock during the day, but what we didn't see was that a connecting gate was not fastened properly. (Now I feel it was our fault for not checking the latch, but at the time we made some wrong assumptions with the family because we knew them to be horse owners.) On the OTHER side of the gate was another stallion.......a younger herd stallion and just big enough (31 inches and medium boned) to kick some butt....... plus he had his group of mares.......

At some point during the night the gate was opened and the two stallion met. The end result I really don't want to relive. The younger stallion had a few bites, cuts, and abrasions...........Our senior stallion did not make it. We literally pulled him into our kitchen to doctor on him before the vet arrived........but he was gone the next day.........

That is our experience...........WE will never put two senior herd stallions together.......even in winter. Losing our boy that way was losing a member of the family........Won't even go there again..........
I am truely sorry for your loss, it must have been very tramatic!!!

But, your larger stallion was running with his group of mares when your smaller stallion got out with him. My stallions would also try to kill each other if they were with a group of mares.(on their minds, these are their mares and no other stallion will take them away.) We are talking about stallions who may be within hearing and smelling distance of the mares, but not in with the mares.

I did last year have my stallions in a paddock area that was right next to mares, only a fence away, and still they got along well. As long as it was winter and no stallion was running with the mares there was no problems. Come March my stallions were separated. (mares here do not often come into heat before then)

By the way, we put all of the stallions together at the same time. If you bring one out later, there may be more fighting.
 
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I think Riverdance has hit it on the head with the fact that they cannot see or hear the mares when they are running together. There is no motivation for them to fight over a squealing mare.

Nathan, I find it odd that you think a Mini stallion fight would be funny. It is not. Here is AZ a family lost another horse when one of theirs got out of it's enclosure during the night, and over by another stallion. That stallion, in their fighting, was able to get out as well and they DID have a dead horse when they got up in the morning. These were Minis, not big horses.

Several years ago, I had a colt that was just approaching a year old, and was kept on the other side of a hot wired fence from my aged stallion. It had never been a problem, and the colt had been there since he was six months old. I came home one day to find fencing torn down, the colt standing down the hill with his head down, and the aged stallion with a couple of his girls, who were already bred by the way, in the yard eating grass.

To make a long story short, I had to load this colt up and haul to the vets to have his eyelid sewn back on. He had lumps the size of grapefruit from the savage attack by the other previously VERY mellow stallion, and his head and neck area was a mess from the bites. ALL the skin on his jaws and neck, and other places literally fell off after a week, hair and all, in big chunks. I was thankful that his ribs were not broken, though they certainly appeared to be and I have never seen a horse this swollen and beaten. It was horrible, and I blamed myself and vowed it would never happen again.

No, it is NOT funny- it is deadly, or at best severely damaging. I never knew what caused the whole thing- the colt was NOT studdy or interested in girls in ANY way at that time. It was as someone else said, someone flipped in a split second and I was glad to find the colt still alive, but it took weeks and weeks and a costly vet bill or two for him to do so.

Just wanted to add that I am sure he is not unhappy, if he has horses next door and horses he can see, he will be just fine. He does not have to have a 'roommate' to be happy. Even if there were no mares in the neighborhood, I would NEVER dream of putting my two stallions together at all- they just couldn't deal with it and were not raised that way.
 
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I do not agree that a "bachelor" stallion loses ability to be a "harem" stallion. My stallions have run together in the off-breeding season gpt fifty years and I have never had one killed or even seriously injured, and the testerone level has stayed up when they returned to their breeding bands. Here are a few of ours taken yesterday...ages two to twenty-six. Sizes 25.5" to 34".

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Well,for me I run my three together during the off season months(None breeding months like Now-Jan), however come Feb till now, NO WAY, they have to many hormones going on, and way to much mare on their minds for my liking, so to be safe I don't.
 
I hate it when a horse is by themselves.....so we avoid that situation if at all possible.
We pasture breed. So our senior herd stallions always have at least one mare with them, and if it works out, they have more.......

Our young stallions and colts are split up into three small groups right now. There is an aggressive stallion group, a more docile stallion group, and a colt group.........and so far so good.........The important thing that we did was to "test the waters" with each personality. You need to be right there and watching to decide what is best for your horse. This is IMPORTANT.

We have NEVER put our breeding senior stallions together, INTENTIONALLY. That just does not work, no matter what time of year it is...........And we had a horrible accident occur to prove it. I will probably NEVER get over this.........

Last winter we pulled our top senior stallion to the barn/paddock area for each night to give him time to chow down. He was 28.5 inches, 21 years old, and had dropped some weight. And every morning he was turned back out with his few girls...... A family came to visit and went through the paddock during the day, but what we didn't see was that a connecting gate was not fastened properly. (Now I feel it was our fault for not checking the latch, but at the time we made some wrong assumptions with the family because we knew them to be horse owners.) On the OTHER side of the gate was another stallion.......a younger herd stallion and just big enough (31 inches and medium boned) to kick some butt....... plus he had his group of mares.......

At some point during the night the gate was opened and the two stallion met. The end result I really don't want to relive. The younger stallion had a few bites, cuts, and abrasions...........Our senior stallion did not make it. We literally pulled him into our kitchen to doctor on him before the vet arrived........but he was gone the next day.........

That is our experience...........WE will never put two senior herd stallions together.......even in winter. Losing our boy that way was losing a member of the family........Won't even go there again..........
I am truely sorry for your loss, it must have been very tramatic!!!

But, your larger stallion was running with his group of mares when your smaller stallion got out with him. My stallions would also try to kill each other if they were with a group of mares.(on their minds, these are their mares and no other stallion will take them away.) We are talking about stallions who may be within hearing and smelling distance of the mares, but not in with the mares.

I did last year have my stallions in a paddock area that was right next to mares, only a fence away, and still they got along well. As long as it was winter and no stallion was running with the mares there was no problems. Come March my stallions were separated. (mares here do not often come into heat before then)

By the way, we put all of the stallions together at the same time. If you bring one out later, there may be more fighting.

Thank you for your post......... And I agree....... It was a shock and it was amazing how much aggression must have been still working between the two, considering it was in January. However, there were mares involved which is probably why it all became so violent.
 
I am a firm believer in NOT keeping stallions alone. I think it leads to a lot of behavior issues. There are times when I have had to do it but only as a last result and I try to rectify it as soon as possible. Right now Black is out with his herd of mares. Once breeding is over Jet our gelding will go back in with him. The only time I take the gelding out is during breeding. I also used to do this with Tamale until he was sold. We are now building Feature his own paddock and he will have a couple mares with him at all times.

Because of my past experience I would be very reluctant to put 2 breeding stallions together, but I do know it works for other farms like Tony. I love the way Tony houses his stallions!

I am the one who had 2 stallions get into a fight. It was my 30" stallion vs my 36.5" stallion and it was horrible. Luckily I came home and found them because it was going to be a fight to the death. Ironically the 30" stallion got the best of the 36.5" stallion. When the vet got here he was in shock at the damage these 2 did to each other. These 2 were in seperate stalls on seperate sides of the barn. The small one got out and literally kicked down a huge heavy wrought iron wood sliding door. Kicked it off its hinges which were bolted in a steel plate!
 

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