Keeping a stallion

I have never kept a stallion but have many friends that do. It all depends on the stallions personality. Some will tolerate geldings others will try to kill them. They get along with mares but the downside to them running together all the time is having foals at the wrong time of year. Some stallions will be calm gentle willing workers while others will challenge you at times. A stallion needs to know who’s boss or they can become unmanageable. A good friend has tried to give me his Percheron stallion many times and although he is calm and easily handled he is the father of two of our horses and we have no desire to raise foals every year. He would require seperate facilities and be more trouble than he is worth even though he is free. Depending on the individual stallion it may or may not work for you.
In the Mohawk Valley Auction catalog there is an ad for a 15hand Jack at stud in Little Falls, N.Y. that might be more to your liking.

Oklahoma (August 9, 2011)
Don’t know how far down the road you are with your Stallion question but here’s my take. Before the drought of ’97 – 98 we ran 19 brood mares and a stallion on pasture. Every so often they all get sick of each other and you need a setup where you can get him away from the ladies. Well that’s money, and if you have a small operation you may or may not have the room. With all the stallions out there maybe a search for the confirmation you like will get you farther down the road than buying one of your own (uinless you’ve just got to have a stallion).

I like your thoughts on pasture breeding (if your new to it). People will write you about hand breeding at the chute and all that can go on with your first time. Then there’s the problem of venereal disease with a strange stallion and the whole mess just on from there. Before you know it you’re a few thousand dollars down the road and still a couple thousand short to finish what you started. Might want to buy a test tube and rent a Vet and be done with it.

I had top notch expert help from a neighbor who shares a fence with me and who went in with me on this expirament. These days there’s no stallion on the place and just 4 mares and I don’t think I’ll ever be young enough again to start up again.

We are very new to keeping a stallion, but can tell you what we thought about when deciding to take on this project:

1) We got our stud as a colt, and out of a lifetime working stallion, from a working farm. The type was important, too, though a little hit or miss at that age (we were after a smaller guy to match our mares, 16.2 or so. Some of his brothers were big–but at 3 1/2 yrs, Baxter is still about 16 hands, like his dad, so I guess we lucked out).

2) I firmly believe that keeping a stallion with his herd is very important to good manners–reminding him that, while he can establish dominance over his horse friends, humans are separate, and in charge.

3) There is always the snip if he forgets the rules, and with a younger stallion we felt we’d have a better chance of keeping him as a gelding if we had trouble with him as a stallion.

Two years into the deal, we have a beautiful filly–Finoula–and the reward of working with her from day one is well worth it! She’s friendly and quiet, and runs along with the mares when we’re doing field work. We’ve had no trouble with BAxter being aggressive or possessive of the foal–to the contrary, they are best buddies, and for now, if we have to separate Finoula from her mom, we usually choose BAxter to tie her near for company. She will also graze with Baxter often. He was around when Reine went into labour,and we were apprehensive about putting the new baby and her mom back with the group, but it went fine!

The only issues we have seen or forseen thus far:

1) Baxter seems to have gotten a little fixated on Reine (Finoula’s mom), and only wants to breed her. That’s been fine, but now she’s bred (we think), he sometimes gets a bit feisty with her, and tries to breed her. We have not had her preg checked, but she is pretty obvious when she is in heat, and definitely not receptive when she’s not! We may have to separate him from at least part of the mare herd (we have Finoula plus 3 other mares, and no geldings for company). Any feedback on this behavior wouldbe welcome! Not too big an issue so far, except that we run them as part of our grazing system behind the cows, and more groups = more fence = more time, AND I don’t entirely trust a 1-strand electric fence to separate him from a group of mares, which means that he’d be out of the grazing rotation,too. Darn!

2) NOw he has a daughter that he will need to be separated from as she gets to breeding age–again, number of groups and fencing are my concerns.

Overall, he’s a great horse, and it’s pretty neat to work with a stallion–so different from either a mare or gelding. One note on our observations of breeding. Baxter does better if we help him out–pasture breeding in the pure sense has not resulted in a good breeding that we have seen yet. It’s more like really effective heat detection. WHen someone’s in heat, we bring them in, give them a few hours separation, then bring BAxter on a lead. Then we do the same the next day until she’s not in heat any more (very obvious!)

We’re definitely very new to this, and only have experience with this one horse… So, take it all as observations only, but we’ve had a lot of fun!

Gwyneth & Neal

With the surplus of good horses available, unless you have a need for a particular blood-line I would hesitate to take on the responsibility of a stallion with my herd. In my practice I usually saw an individual that needed the boost that riding a stallion would do for their ego. I have always felt a “good” stallion makes for a “great” gelding. During the last 4-H horse show I attended I saw a teen-aged boy ride a young stallion into the holding pen where 30+ youngsters were warming up for the reining event. Within 5 minutes the stallion mounted a pony mare with a young girl aboard, kicked several geldings, and basically killed the rest of the reining class. IMHO it just isn’t worth it.

Bill,
I seperated my colts last year at 4 months the mares and colts made some niose for the first day or so then they settled in. I would start off by leaving the colts in the barn and putting the mares to work then after they get the idea that they will live with out mom then I would graduate to a pasture. It all depends on how you want to go about it. I have also worked mares and then allowed the colts to be with the mares at nite for a while. If you have any questions feel free to give me a call.
Joshua