Hi all… I have a red-headed warmblood mare;) who has an in-your-pocket personality and has great ground manners, but when she is out in the pasture she’ll sneak attack her pasture-mates. They do nothing to antagonize and are all fed separately. She’ll sidle up close and act like she’s their buddy and stay there for a little while, and then all of a sudden lash out for no reason at all. Now I’ve isolated her, but she’s pregnant and I’d like for her to be able to stay with the other broodmares so when the foal arrives it will be able to be socialized. Also, she’s a maiden mare and I’m worried about how she’ll act with her baby? Any suggestions/experiences? Thanks!
Was her behavior like that before she was pregnant? If so, I would imagine she will go into ultra protection mode when she has the baby. (Just re-read your post and it sounds like her behavior was like this pre-pregnancy.)
When I got my mare, I didn’t know she was pregnant and she was very low in the herd dynamics. After she had the foal and went back to the same herd of mares, she quickly become one of the dominate ones and I was totally surprised. She is now in a pasture with a mixed herd, and is the top mare. She doesn’t go out of her way to be mean, but she makes it very clear that she is the boss.
She is an absolute doll with people, and fortunately the people I board with are savvy enough to understand herd dynamics.
You really can’t train herd behavior out of horse, nor do I think it’s right to try. You are just going to have to play the waiting game and see what she is like after the baby is born.
You might want to keep her seperate but in an adjoining paddock. If she’s starting fights, sooner or later somebody is going to give it back to her and a kick could be disastrous.
Hormone swings in pregnancy can be all over the place. She can socialize and so can her foal without generating vet bills. But thru a fence until you are sure she will not get overprotective. Not worth the risk if she’s acting like a witch now and its a first foal.
Unfortunately, jenm, her behavior was like this before she was pregnant. I would never plan on trying to force her to be less dominant, but it makes me feel like a bad horse mom to stick her on her own (even if she’s just across the fence from the others) because she makes it clear that she wants to be with them. She’ll go weeks without an incident, then out of nowhere a switch just flips…I really want her foal to be a solid citizen, and be able to interact with the other babies as I’ve seen the disastrous effects of failing to socialize properly; However, the safety of the others is a primary concern as well:confused:
Thanks for the input!
Ive had many in foal mares that had to be paddocked separately (new mares, client mares, bitchy mares, compromised mares, etc) and it all works out just fine in the end. While its “nice” for the foal to have a buddy to play with all day, in the end being safe and not being caught in possible crossfire between 2 or 3 mares wins as the most important consideration. The foals will have plenty of time to interact and learn herd dynamics once they are weaned and in some cases, when it was my only foal that year, their weaning buddies are old “aunties” anyhow that have little to no interest in playing with some bratty foal and those foals mature into well socialized mature horses as well
Sometimes “ideal” and “doable” just don’t work out and simply isn’t possible for a wide variety of reasons …
