I’m on the they will figure it out soon team.
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It depends. Does it look like mutual play behavior? My two horses play all kinds of wild stallion games. One is rarely marked, the other is covered nose to tail in bite marks. But both look equally engaged and happy while playing. Resource guarding and dominance issues are something else entirely. Perhaps the new guy could go out at night with one of the unmarked geldings?
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I am laughing because my horse’s best friend and him trade tearing apart each other’s neck pieces during the winter. It’s like they have a new pull handle by which they can move each other around. The other owner and I joke about it constantly. We both bought “sacrifice” sheets worn over their winter blankets so they chew those up rather than the expensive blankets.
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Well, I wouldn’t be happy about it at all. Mine two minis don’t go out together because one tried to kill the other, flipped him over and had him on the ground stomping and biting him viciously, it wasn’t play it was a savage attack. IDK, horses will be horses and they’ll sort it out most of the time but I prefer mine not to be chewed on.
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Playing is one thing, attempted murder is another.
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I’m with the majority here, not a big deal (assuming there isn’t attempted murder going on, but it sounds like that probably isn’t the case). One of my mares spent an entire summer with people asking if she had gotten caught in a barbed wire fence because she was covered in bite marks from my mare herd. I watched them all the time (horses are at home), and I have no idea why she was such a bite-magnet. The mares got along well, and pretty much never fought or even argued. But she seemed to take the brunt of nips from my old mare (probably because she was challenging her more than the others), so despite no “fights” or seeming unrest, she was always covered in little bite marks.
Now I have 2 boys who live together and UGH boys will be boys, indeed! In week one, my 4yo baby came in with a huge bite mark on his jugular. It settled down from there, and recently blankets have taken a lot more damage than skin, but I periodically find bite marks on both of them. They seem to wrestle and pester each other a lot more than my mares. But overall they seem happy living together and, like Reed, I show frequently with visible bite marks. And same story on blankets - my boys often tug each other all over the pasture by blankets.
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This is what I saw when it happened at my farm. The horse who got flipped didn’t get stomped on- he was fast after the first flip. And then I was there to separate them and take the bad actor out.
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I agree. The thing that surprised me was they had been turned out together for about 2 months with no issues at all. They were grazing about, oh say 50 feet apart and then, like you said, “attempted murder” happened. Who knows what goes on in their heads.
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Could you possibly make it out there one morning to see the routine and potentially observe what is going on?
I have two six year old geldings and they LOVE to roughhouse, pull each other around by anything they can grab, play face tag endlessly, etc. It is actually pretty funny to watch them - when the TB wants to play he will walk over and press his face into my mustangs face until he starts nipping it to kick off face tag. I have them at home so I can keep an eye on them and I figure as long as they are equally instigating it I don’t worry too much. I have been impressed that while they do often cover each other in marks, they VERY rarely break the skin or do any real damage. I will also add that my mustang is very much the dominant one but currently has way more marks on him because the other one is more of a biter when they play.
With that being said - I do always have multiple hay options available, I have a big container like you posted, a smaller trough which I place far away, and I hang multiple hay nets. 99% of the time they share the big hay container without an issue, but I think having so many options reduces stress/territoriality.
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Did your mare’s bites end up being scars? That is one thing I am concerned about…
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Could you possibly make it out there one morning to see the routine and potentially observe what is going on?
I wish…it would be a major effort but could be helpful. My trainer indicated my horse contributes to the interactions, for instance trying to remove his halter etc.
Another boarder thought one of the other horses was biting mine, I guess it has been uneasy around feeding times since the new one is there.
My major concern if we go the ‘let them figure it out’ route is that my horse will get scars. This could influence his future, and I want to best prepare him in case he ever needs a new home.
Some of the bites are pretty deep.
I thought about getting him an exzema blanket or neck protection, though they might consider that the new play thing 
Thanks for the many replies!
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I’m sorry, unless you’re going into show season where blemishes could count, I would not worry about that. That is not a major bite. That’s something I would maybe give a smear of Vasaline to keep it soft and carry on. He is very likely to not get a scar from that. My first QH horse used to get multiples of those in the off season (I referred to him as the farm chew toy) and they all healed without an issue. I just switched him to individual turnout before show season started up because his were usually a lot larger than that.
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Nope, no scars. And my daughter just reminded me of the time one of the mares bit her mare right in the jugular area and she had a swollen, serum-seeping wound right as we headed to a clinic. I was positive that one would result in white hairs at the very least. It did not.
I pulled neck covers off of my boys 2 weeks ago and just pulled my baby in to groom yesterday and noticed he has much more aggressive bites all over his neck than the one in your picture. Sigh. It’s all done in “fun” (I watch it often enough to witness what’s happening), but all I can say is that boys tend towards the idiot side of things 
(his “attacker” also has bite marks, so it’s not a one-sided thing)
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Oh also, the one thing I had luck with in the summer season was a Rambo fly sheet. They’re the only ones strong enough to repel both bugs AND (more importantly) pasturemates’ teeth
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All group turn out has a risk of scars. That is not the same thing as a horse at risk of serious abuse from pasture mates. It’s just part of being a horse.
If an owner is serious about preventing scars on their horse, their horse cannot go into group turnout.
Not only do they need a fence between their horse and every other horse on the planet, but they need two fences, so the horses have enough separation that they can’t punch holes in each other over the fence. While having fun, of course.
Group turn out is like sending a kid out onto a busy rambunctious playground with lots of climbing equipment, and lots of other kids of all sizes and ages. And then trying to insist that your kid can never fall down no matter what, can never skin their knee, can never get their feelings hurt, can never cry. Not a realistic expectation. Given enough playtime, all of those things will happen.
(Children typically accumlate a lifelong knee scar from playing or falling off a bike, maybe more than one. In my extended family, many children (and later as adults) have a (small) Frankenstein-looking scar through the eyebrow. From plunging headfirst into the edge or corner of a coffee table as a child. IMO coffee tables should be outlawed. 
/s)
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For what it’s worth - My mustang who was clearly a fighter on the wild (missing half an ear and had his front teeth rearranged) does not have any obvious scars from bite marks, and my TB who LOVES face tag and is a constant instigator of rough play also has no long lasting scars from bite marks (other than that he actually also nearly got his ear bitten off before I got him and has a scar there)…
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