Horse ?? Stallion to Gelding

[Karrie13]

I have a question. My mother-in-law has a 13 year old horse that was gelded 1 ½ years ago. He was used for breeding before; in fact my mare had a foal of his 2 years ago. Well, he is now living at my house for the winter (our cows are at their place) in the pasture with my mare. I caught him “completely” breeding my mare today, a couple of times. I know she can’t get pregnant or anything what I want to know is if anyone has any tips on stopping this behavior. The neighborhood kids don’t need to witness this.

 

[19hhbelgian]

Take him out of the pen... Honestly I'm not sure how to stop that behavior. Tell your mare to quit teasing him

Being 13, he's got a lot of testosterone built up, and he may actually never stop "breeding" mares, although his behavior should slow down a lot. I've known geldings as old as 29 still "breeding" some of their favorite girls. That particular boy was gelded early in life, and had not been used for breeding. It's nature... Our neighbors witness it a lot in May - June

Sorry, wish I could give you better advice!

 

[Cara]

We have geldings that will act this way, even though they have never bred mares. The only way we've found to deal with it is to pasture them separately. They will sometimes still try over the fence.

 

[AkTomboy]

Yep Yep as others said you are out of luck as far as teaching him not to. Distance and a super good fence is the only pretty much the only option from my experiance.

 

[buck-wild-chick]

Shock collar... Down boy DOWN !

 

[19hhbelgian]

Quote:
Funny... We actually hooked 2 shock collars together to use on my mini who we couldn't for the life of us, get to stay in the fence, which was electric!! It worked... He'd start sniffing (next would be running in between the strands of electric fence, which did work, and was on) and we would zap him. He stopped escaping and we could relax when we left the house

 

[Karrie13]

Looks like I am pretty much out of luck then! Ok, I only have on pasture divided into two that connect to a holding pen which is where the water, shelter, and food is. So I guess I either have to deal with it or send him back to my Mother-in-laws.

Thanks everyone for the advice! Loved the shock collar suggestion.

 

[michickenwrangler]

DH's old Appaloosa gelding used to breed my Arab/Saddlebred mare quite frequently. He was 11 when we bought him, she was 9 and he had been gelded since he was 4. The people we bought him from had only geldings.

Just make sure you do enough groundwork with him that he respects YOU at least. At yearly shots, Coggins, you may want the vet to check your mare just in case she gets a vaginal infection from him, just as if she were a breeding mare. I'm not implying that your gelding is dirty, but my mare got one from DH's horse. One medicated douche and five days of antibiotics cleared it up, but it was still a hassle.

 

[willheveland]

What does anybody think about using "salt peter" or "niter" as the old timers called it? Will

 

[patandchickens]

Sorry, but I've known a number of geldings who will complete the full act (except of course for actually fathering offspring) and I know of absolutely nothing that will make them stop doing it. Well, I take that back, starvation or severe ill-health can do it, or having an extremely grumpy mare try to kill 'em, but I do not recommend either as intelligent or reliable cures

All you can really do is either turn him out only with other geldings, or if with mares, make sure the sheath is cleaned regularly to decrease the chance of causing vaginal infections.

Of course he should not even be *thinking* of this while you are working with him, and if he does, should be corrected and retrained just as you would with a stallion.

Good luck,

Pat