“Stacy do you let your geldings run with mares in open pasture?” Thank You, Loretta D.
Yes, my geldings and mares run together. We currently have 4 horses. In the past I have separated some because of personality issues and smaller pen sizes. I find that temperament is what I separate for not the sex and they have usually worked out to be mixed sex groups.
I love watching herd dynamics. I recently turned out Popcorn, my gelding, with my friends horses in her pasture. Her buckskin gelding always considered himself to be the keeper of the mares. This video makes me laugh because of two things, first, Popcorn never changes his motions and second, the buckskin seems to be threatening and wondering at the same time.
I think Popcorns pokerface is what kept things from escalating. Watch it again as see how Popcorn never so much as changes his chewing speed, he acts as if they don’t exist. Popcorn gets along well in groups because he isn’t a bully and he doesn’t respond to threats (like this one). At the same time Popcorn will defend himself if he is actually attacked.
The look on the buckskins face as he walks away make me laugh. He seems to be threatening and watching as he walks away but he almost seems to be thinking “I wonder if that guy believed me?”
I love watching horses together in pastures.
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I love how Popcorn shakes his head as they move off….”yeah, whatever”. haha
We humans should learn from this.
ha ha I like the face-off that happens with the grey horse before that!
Hi Stacy, Please change my address for your horseblogs to: highlanderhouse1@gmail.com. Love all your information and insights. Kind regards, Pam Myers
I don’t have the power to change this, I think you have to sign in and do it. Or just sign up again with the new account…maybe…
So interesting to read about. Horse society….who knew….
Popcorn acts so much like my horse Bodie. Bodie hadn’t been around other horses in eight years and I let him into a herd of nine horses. He walked around, nonchalant, and the “big boss” gelding went after him. He trotted a couple steps then went back to eating. All the horses tried to figure out what was wrong with him, because he neither went after them nor responded to their threats at all. Except one gelding, who kept biting him in the backside over and over again. After about fifteen minutes of that horse hanging off his tail, Bodie got tired of it and landed three kicks. Then went back to eating. 😉
Thanks for sharing the video, it was pretty cute!
Popcorn’s like “See ya…more hay for me!” What are the names of the horses you currently have and travel with?
My horse runs with our 14 (and counting 😉 ) cows, soon he’ll have a horse buddy in the same pasture. 😀
Our three mares are all pony size. Our one pony gelding is fine with them. The other horse size geldings, all four of them, fight over the mares and mount them. We keep them in separate pastures. Without the mares around the five geldings get along fine.
We have found in our experience that when we have had 2 geldings and one mare, the geldings tend to fuss between themselves over the one mare. Yet, when we have 2 mares and 1 gelding the balance seems much better. Also, in this mix is a Molly mule, she likes everybody and bosses nobody. It is very interesting when you make a change in the herd. The reactions and herd dynamics is so cool to observe.
Our herd of 5, 3 mares and 2 geldings all run together. We ran our stallion with the broodmares and babies in the same pasture for many years with no problems. We did not run the stallion with geldings and non-breeding mares.