How to tell which is the alpha mare

SFM - A little off topic....but does that butt belong to a haflinger. It looks remarkably like our 23/24 y/o haflinger mares back end....LOL

She is a clown. Acts like a teenager and occasionally gets thrown out of the group for pestering everyone. After a few hours to a day (depending on how much she drove them nuts) she is allowed back into the group. I really like the haflingers temperament.

When I was bringing our herd into the paddock from the pasture, a gelding managed to corner one of our lower ranking mares and really worked her over before I was able to seperate them. He kicked her multiple times resulting in some blood and missing hair on the mare but fortunately there were no serious cuts or injuries. When I see multiple kick marks on a horse I suspect that the recipient was put in a position where it couldn't move away from the assault and this time I witnessed the event as it happened. Here's a couple of pics taken a week after the incident and you can see that the damage is mostly healed already. We got lucky this time but I will be very careful of keeping this mare away from this gelding in the future.


Have fun, be safe

Jack

You're right, that is exactly what it is!

She's probably14 or 15 ... I got her 6 or 7 years ago in a trade for a gaited gelding I'd traded for and couldn't ride/ get to gait ... best horse trade I've ever made in my life!

That's often what happens and I'm glad your mare is healing. This one I watched and it was a mutual "evil eye", both mares moving to the center of the corral, then turning rump to rump and flailing away, with lots of loud squawls to accompany the thumps. Then they would go to their respective corners, think it over and come back to the "center of the ring" and try again.

Definitely an alpha discussion and actually kind of funny to watch. When it was finally over, each mare was at the opposite ends of the corral, very pointedly *NOT* looking at each other.

I am glad I have Icelandic's, they don't tend to kick like other horse breeds. Most the mare's do, is shove their butts into each other and push... LOL
Only very rarely do the mares kick, and normally it is to a cheeky youngster that is being annoying and not listening.
Geldings and Stallions like to rear and bite the forelegs and ears of their pasture mates.
They'll even drop down to their knees to keep the other from tagging them. Fun to watch.

Yup, Icelandic's do smell different, specially when they are wet.

__________________
Shari

Hmmm... since Icelandics don't smell like other horses and Gypsies don't smell like other horses.... wonder if they smell like each other? lol

__________________
" It's better to ride even if you get thrown, than to wind up just wishin' ya had."

Chris Ledoux

The boss of our herd once was a tiny shetland pony mare.My sister brought in a big paint mare that never fought with any horses but she was the boss.Thats the strangest thing that i thought that was a halflinger butt too.My sisters halflingers are too stubborn too suit me.

Dolly is extremely well trained, originally Amish trained, ride and drive single and double. Bought by the man I got her from to be the "trained" team mate to get his Haflinger gelding broke to harness. She was the only mare he had with a bunch of geldings, so once his gelding was well broke, he was perfectly happy to trade her to me for the gaited gelding I'd traded for and couldn't ride correctly.

Dolly isn't exactly stubborn. If you ask her to do something and ask correctly and firmly, she's fine, though she will very carefully push just a bit ... one step after "whoa" ... deep breath before stepping off when you cluck ... reach for a bite of grass going through the gate. And she will keep pushing it until you have to really get after her seriously ... then she's fine for a couple of months before she starts up again. She'd absolutely never hurt anyone for any reason and as close to being 'bomb-proof' as you can get in a horse, but she wouldn't work out well for someone who was tentative or timid. She'd end up doing exactly what she pleased (which probably isn't working for a living!)