Question: Hello, I just got a 5 month old stud colt. I already have two 7 year old geldings. When can I start putting them all together? We tried once and the little stud colt was not scared of the other two horses but it was getting kicked and we seperated them. Thanks! Chatty

Answer: Hello, I would recommend that you create a small paddock in the pasture with the two geldings and put the baby in that for a week. That way the geldings can get to know the baby and communicate their dominance over him without damaging him. After about a week of side/by/side living I would take out the more dominant gelding and let the baby out with the other gelding for several hours (not during feeding time as that is when horses are at their most aggressive). When they seem fairly calm then reintroduce the dominant gelding to the group. I would also remove the back shoes of the older geldings so if they do get in a kick the chances for serious damage are minimized. There will still be a little bit of fireworks when you let the baby in freely with the geldings but it will be much less violent and for a shorter duration. If you are not gelding the colt then you'll need to probably remove him from the geldings as he starts to mature since he'll start trying to move up in the dominance ranks and stallions "fight for real" and can actually keep at it till they kill the other horse. Good luck and let me know how it turns out. Amber

Followup Question: Hello Amber, We started to put one gelding (not the dominate one) with the colt and he tryed to make his move. The colt always ran over by the dominate gelding (he was locked in a paddock at the time). We then switched the geldings and the dominate one is taking care of the colt. We let out the nondominate gelding and the dominate one kind of was guarding the colt. We had the colt for 3 days now and the nondominate gelding is locked in a paddock because he still bites the colt. Will the nondominate one get better? Do you know if we are doing something wrong? Thanks for your help! Mandi

Answer: Dominance is not just the top horse - the pecking order applies to the other horses too. From what you describe it seems to me that the colt has recognized and accepted the dominate horse's place. Now your other gelding is trying to establish to the colt that he's second in the pecking order. You don't say how the colt was raised before you got him - if he was raised just with his dam and not around other horses then he might be confused on herd dynamics. You also don't say how long you let the 2nd gelding and the baby be together before separating them - was it for a hour or a day. If it was a day or two and the biting and kicking were still occurring then you might not beable to keep them together until the baby is big enough to defend himself. If it was for just a couple hours then I would let them work it out themselves - as long as the damage to the baby is superficial i.e. nicks, minor bruises, loss of hair, etc. Just make sure that they are in a big enough pasture that the baby cannot get trapped. Once the baby understands that the 2nd gelding gets to push him around also then they should start getting along better. Amber

Followup Question: I know when we got the colt that he was around other breeds of horses, but he was in one pen with his father and two goats. Other then that, I don't know how else he was raised. I think he was fed and locked in the barn at night, fed and let out in the morning. We kept the nondominate gelding with the colt for about 30 min. If we would have left or kept them both together, the nondom. gelding would have ran the baby colt to death, biting a LOT, and sometimes kicking him. He also ran the colt up against the fence because he was biting him. We have a big enough pasture, it is 3 acres So should we just keep all 3 horses together? I know all they are going to do is run that colt and I don't know if they will stop. Mandi

Answer: Hi Mandi, It's hard to judge the true severity of the nondominate gelding's attacks from your description. Horses can put on quite a show with each other and not inflict serious damage. Also mature horses are usually very aware of young horses and pull their punches accordingly. I'm curious as to how the gelding keeps getting close enough to the colt for all of the biting and kicking? young horses are about as fast as the mature horses so he should be able to get away - if he is not moving away then he is ignoring or doesn't understand the geldings "signals" which say I'm dominate move! Therefore the gelding escalates the signal to biting and kicking. How food centric is the nondominate gelding? If he is a horse that is very focused on food you could put out feed in three separate corners of the pasture and then let them all out together. The food might distract the nondominate gelding some and give him a specific item to be protectful of and get his point across. I would put them all together and let them sort it out and only interfere if the baby is cornered and can't get away. If the baby is choosing to not get away then this is a fast and hard lesson for him on herd dynamics and he has to learn sometime. But only do this if the nondominate gelding is exerting dominance (even if a bit roughly) and not trying to actually kill the baby. Amber -----

Update: We put all of the horses together yesterday (the 3rd) and they are being a LOT better now! Thank you for all your help. This is our first baby horse so we were kind of confused on what to do. Thanks again Amber!
Mandi