Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 5 y/o mini stallion who is an attitudal jerk a lot of the time. He is very moody, at one time he'll let you do things with him and other times he rears and bites at you. I have tried letting him out into the pasture with my mare and her 7 month old baby, hoping he would chill out, but for 2 hours I ran around the pasture trying to keep him from killing them. My mare is pregnant by him and the baby on the ground is his so obviously he's bred. Will gelding him at this point help anything or will he continue to be a big jerk? I am new to horses large and small and not experienced with stallions and he is making me crazy.

Kim

To the best of my knowledge, gelding a horse that late in life, doesn't tend to affect their personality very much. It might benefit him a lot if you can spend a LOT of time retraining his ground manners, putting him through his paces a lot (lounge him), basically, keep him from being bored enough to act up. Some horses are just jerks and not much you do will affect that. A friend of mine had a quarter horse gelding who was a jerk as well, especially if he decided he didn't want to be crosstied anymore, he'd throw himself upside down, strangling himself until he passed out just because it wasn't "his idea".

I would not recommend putting him in with other horses he could hurt, but I think you've already learned that. ^_^ What kind of feed is he on, as well, because if he's getting too much protein or sugar (molasses, mostly) in his feed, that could cause him to be high-strung. If he's on 12% sweet feed, for example, I'd suggest putting him on a 10% pelleted feed and see if there's any change over a month or so.

Let me know any updates, okay?

I know this is really, really late coming in but in case someone is reading with a similar problem...

GELD HIM

A good stallion makes a great gelding. And from the sounds of it, this guy isn't good to start with and needs some serious reduction of extra baggage.

He definitely shouldn't be out with a mare, allowing him to breed her. A rank stud does NOT get better with age and breeding - he gets worse because he is learning consistently that he can get away with it.

Gelding will not change learned behaviors - that will take training. But the loss of the levels of testosterone you're dealing with, will make the training a good bit easier on you and him. After gelding him, go back to some serious ground work basics and get control. If you don't know how, there are plenty of good instructional materials - written and video - that can help you.

And last but not least, it's good that you realize you don't know a lot about horses. So step back, buckle down and start learning - and don't be breeding until you've done some serious learning!!! We all make mistakes, and there's no time like today to start learning from them and moving in a better direction!