Introducing a new horse to a herd?

Question

Hello everyone;

We just bought a lovely standardbred gelding. He'll be joining our family tomorrow. My gelding is awesome with mares, and he's good with our other gelding because he was introduced to him as a colt, but I'm not sure how he's going to react to the new boy. Even when I have to board him at other stables because of shows, he has to be let out in a pasture only with mares because he fights with other boys (except our other gelding). Any suggestions on how to make this transition smoother for all parties involved? Thanks! :)

Answer 1

If you can i would suggest trying to have your new horse in a paddock and your other horses in the adjancet paddock. atleast you can leave him n there and he cant get beaten up. Another way you could do it is by having Main Gelding on a lead rope and bring the new one up also on a lead rope and bring them together. you could either do this with or with out a fence in between, tho i would suggest having a fence in between if your new and old horse. Hopefully if your old horse will accpt him them your other horses will to. It will be likly if your new horse is near to the others there will get interrested and will great him (hopefilly without too many nasty greetings)

Answer 2

I work at a training barn and we have found the most efficiant way of introducting new horses we think. It works with little to no problem.

First we put the new horse in a paddock next to the horse who we think will be a problem then we add the dominate horse of the other pasture to his paddock and we let them run around and do their thing then we introduce him/her into the big pasture. It actually works well we have never had no issues except for a stud who would escape :( he was a cute little dude. He went home not too long ago..

Answer 3

Maybe let them meet in controlled and supervised situations? Like over a fence or partition wall? Do it a little by little. I shouldn't there would be a problem on the new horse's side. I had a STB once, and I think they're great with other horses in general. We moved him to a new paddock with another horse in it. On their first meeting they had a quick sniff and then took off for a race round the field. Haha.

Good Luck.

Answer 4

what i did was we did a few thing we first caled all the horse to the fence and had the horse we were introducing on a halter and lead rope on the other side and we then took him in and had all the horses on lead ropes and we then let themsniff each other all over and then we let them go