Herding Issues

My 3 big dominant geldings have marred each other up from day 1.  When one went blind, the other two ran him through the fence twice (only because the smooth wire wouldn't let him run through). [] They ripped strips of hide off of him. []
I've had to separate them - and I just have 4.  I now have a POA (might as well face it - she'll never be a horse) who is the perfect companion for the blind horse.  When I got the 3 big ones, two trailered from Wisconsin, picked up the third in IL and then here to the Memphis area.  The adoption program director insists that trailering helps bond them.   She's been in the business since mid-80's.
Sounds like you have more than one pasture area.  Maybe start with 2, find a peaceful combination and add one at a time?  It's usually only one or two, isn't it that are doing the biting? Has this gone on forever or did an addition to the herd start it?

It gets tough because there are some horses coming and going and just when things settle down they startup again.  I am also finding that if I put certain horses together they are more prone to "barn sour"
UHH!

It is hard when you have to keep moving horses around and adding new ones.  My three geldings have their pecking order pretty well established but I added a 2 yr. old filly to the herd this year, social misfit who had been raised alone and had to introduce them to her one at a time.  I've tried putting 2 of them in with her and can only do so in a large area.  They seem to gang up on her......  It's been a couple months now so I'm thinking her manners have probably improved and I can try again.  Even my guys who mostly get along chomp each other up once in a while.
 
Probably if you keep adding new horses to the herd, they will keep having to re-establish their pecking order over and over.  I think sometimes when they get frustrated by being bossed around when they are used to being the boss, they take it out on the lower level horses too......

S$#@& does indeed roll down hill.

When we moved into our barn last fall we moved 4 horses in that knew each other. We had two other horses at 2 other places. Once day we picked the 2 up to take to school for a couple months. It was not fun as they had never met each other. The mare was in 1st and every time we loaded the gelding, who was still new to trailers, she would kick and off he would go. We broke ALL of our trailer ties that day. We had to take the mare off, get the gelding on, then put the mare back on and kept an empty slot between them. The gelding was terrified of her after that. While at school they saw each other only a couple of times in passing.

When it was time to bring them home we knew there would be problems. The two graduates stayed in the barn next to each other for a week. FORCED BONDING. Then they were released into a pasture together with no one else. We did this to make sure they would do OK with each other. They had bonded and would not leave each other's side. The next step was to release them with the others. That went well since they had buddied up and no one got hurt.

Recently we brought the mare's above filly home for a brief visit and tried forced bonding with mare, filly and a gelding that would be the filly's travel companion to her school in GA. Barn time was good. Pasture release was not, the filly was ganged up on by the two that spent barn time with her. Back to the drawing board. Mother went back to big herd and we tried gelding and filly. Now that there were just the 2 of them, it worked fine and they became buddies.

Looking back, in the future if I was bringing in 1 new horse I would take someone out of the main herd and do a week of forced bonding and release just those two in to a pasture, then introduce them to the big herd. I think the new one needs a buddy established before going into the pasture with everyone else. Of course, you have to have the facilities to be able to do this. If I was adding more than 1 new one I would try to do something very similar.

If horses are constantly coming and going though, you will always have this issue. Where we use to board when a new horse came in they would stall board for a week and let the horse into a pasture by itself. This allowed them to observe the horse to determine which herd they would fit in best with.  If things didn't work out, then a different herd was chosen. For the most part geldings and mares were separated.

I like the suggestion of the buddy system.. sounds smart.
 
I have a saddlebred gelding I have had for 3 years and a percheron mare. The mare is fairly new, Truman (my saddlebred gelding) I never realy noticed any realy naughty behavior the first few years just maybe the norm getting adjusted and establishing pecking order stuff. Then like 6 mo ago  moved him to a friends temporarily and she had a stallion in a pasture next to the pature the rest of the horses were out in. At that time he began herding the mares away from the stallion and running of geldings. Since I cannot seem to turn him out with other geldings which was never a problem before. I have an open stall at my barn and I have several people interested in boarding but they have geldings and I turn my two out durring the day as I would plan to do a boarder as well but I haven't because I'm worried about the pasture situation and some one elses horse getting beat up. I for now have decided to at least wait until I pull his back shoes. Any suggestions?
 
thanks
Laura

I have had success with the same method Face uses.  I put the new horse in an adjoining stall.  This way they can get acquainted.  I then would put the new one in the paddock and let the others out in the adjoining yard.  The fence was plank and double posted so they could not get through it but could meet over the top and if any bullying was happening, the new horse could easily get away from them.  Next step was to turn the new horse out with only one of the others.  When they established peace, I would turn it out with just the other horse (I only have three stalls here).  Then they all went out together.  When I had a place with more stalls,  I would always stall the new horse next to the dominant horse and then turn them out together.  Once they established a working relationship, I could turn everyone out together and the dominant would generally protect the "new kid on the block".

Wishes only for success.

One lady who does a lot of rescue says they bond when they're trailered together.  Hmmm....  I'd give it a shot.  Of course mine were trailered down from WI to MS and they still try to kill each other. 

Watching how Jewel, my 3 yr. old filly has integrated into my herd, I think a lot of it has to do with the social skills of each horse.  Because she was isolated for the first 2 yrs. of her life, she's got a lot of catching up to do and that sticks out like a sore thumb with my geldings and seems to annoy them so they like to "herd" her and discipline her where they don't do that with each other and didn't, even when they were new to each other. I haven't actually ever put her in with all three of them yet because if I put 2 of them in, they tend to gang up on her....... maybe this next year we'll give it a try.  She came a long way when I put her in with an older TB mare who tolerated her a little better.