Horse people? PLEASE. Aggressive horse?

Question

Okay I have three horse. One gelding & two mares. My gelding (comanche) has had the girls to himself for some time now. But we decided to get another horse (merlin). It also happened to be a gelding. Comanche was showing some aggression towards Merlin but its normal. So after almost two weeks of Merlin being kept in my round pen I decided it was time to let him out. They acted like total gentleman until he went near one mare & Comanche ONLY let him know not to do that. Then 5 mins later he went to see my other mare & Comanche again let him know never to do that. Then MErlin went over again & Comanche bit him. I cleaned it up & after 45 mins of me observing them I said well that's enough for one day.

The next morning I went up & turned All my horses out & Merlin went in his round pen (as normal). I applied sun screen/fly spray & double locked all my gates. Then went to a friends for the day. When I came home I was horrified to find Merlin had some how escaped (I will state that gate was NOT opened by a horse. ONLY a human can open, so that worried me). But when he turned around he had was COVERED in blood. Hs whole entire back end was goopy blood & there was a chunk of skin about six inches long hanging there. You could see his muscling. He ran to my daughter greeting her w/ a whinny. I called the vet & he has 20 stiches & battle wounds EVERYWHERE. Hes such a sweet hors & I feel soooooo terribleee. I don't know HOW on earth that gate got opened. Its IMPOSSIBLE for a horse to do. I have EIGHT locks on it. & it gets tied with a lead rope just incase. ( I have escape artists). But my horse that attacked him has NO scarpes or anything. Hes neverrr been aggressive, everrrr. I don't know what to do. When everyone is healed do I dare try turning tem out together? Or will poor Merlin suffer??

Answer 1

Ouch, that's a pretty rough problem!  I've heard of some amazing "leaps"  to escape fights with other horses, so that's probably the case with poor Merlin.  Or if the gate was open maybe he busted through it?  

I would NOT go right back to turning them out together, or you will most likely see the same result as last time.  Not only the poor horse at stake, talk about vet bills too :(  

Did your vet give any advice on how to get the horses together?  Usually dominance disputes are only a matter of noise and ugly faces, maybe a nip or two, but since he was so beat up it's clear that the issue is not going to go away easily.  

Do not turn merlin out with any other horses unsupervised.  Keep an eye on him and put him alone with your other gelding and see how they get along, then i agree with a previous poster that you should try him with one of your mares (make sure it wasn't a mare who did the beating up too!) and break the bond between your other gelding and the mare so that he's not as defensive.

good luck!

Answer 2

The situation with Merlin getting all banged up sounds kind of weird.  Are all his "battle wounds" really battle wounds- bites, kicks, etc- or could they have come from something else?  Unless they're very clearly from a horse, you can't know for sure that Comanche is the perpetrator.  I agree with whoever said you should rotate horses, though.  If Comanche did attack Merlin, you obviously don't want them turned out together, but some horses don't like being left alone, and even though we like to think we've horse-proofed our gates, there's no telling what a horse can do when he wants out.  If you keep one of the mares with each of them, that should should satisfy Comanche's need to be boss dog and give Merlin some company.  And keep an extra careful watch on the gates, obviously.

Answer 3

this is what  you do you separate Comanche and the mares and put Merlin in with the mares for about a month and  then  bring comanche back in to the pasture with him on a lunge line  and if before you go in to the pasture and he sees merlin with the mares and starts to go in to a dominate state take him back to the barn and try again the next day and keep doing this until he does no longer get dominate when you approach the fence and then let he hang around the out side of the pasture and when he get dominant tack him away so he will learn that dominance will get him no where

Answer 4

Comanche is taking care of HIS herd.

Try putting Merlin out with ONE mare for a week or two - then the other mare for a week or two. This will allow him to meet the girls without Comanche around.

Adding a gelding might have been a bad idea with another gelding already in an established herd.

This will take time before your Comanche accepts Merlin to be around HIS girls.

Merlin may just be one of those horses that CAN undo latches that other horses can't...perfect name for him if he is!!

  

Answer 5

Merlin probably just got hurt in the process of getting out. Comanche is just the alpha male. but just to be safe, i would put the mare in the round pen to reduce the agression  

Answer 6

If the other horse didn't have scratches, I wonder if he got into a fight at all. Especially since it was opened by somebody...this just isn't normal.