Just Curious..

[Kelly4NC]

I wanted to know do stallions get moody when they don't .....you know....for awhile?

[cook1745]

I do believe so. I think they get worse when they are keep alone and never breed but I'm no expert.

[Drafty]

I would say no. In my, though limited, experience, stallions get their "stallion behaviors" from being kept alone and isolated from other horses. Stallions will do fine with a herd of other stallions, or even geldings. But keep them away from other horses altogether, and yes, they will get "moody" and dangerous and all those other things that people associate with stallions.

[Faceman]

"Stallion behavior" is not the same as "moodiness". Much like geldings, I've always found stallions much more even tempered and less moody than mares. No, they don't get "horny" if they haven't covered a mare in a long time, although there are, of course, exceptions I'm sure.

But with that being said, if they can smell a mare in season, yes, the old testosterone will start flowing and they will get rambunctious.

The stallion behavior is a different issue. The presence of testosterone does make most stallions exhibit typical stallion behaviors to one degree or another. Examples are rearing, herding and driving the mares, fighting with geldings, etc. But these behaviors aren't "moody", they are there all the time without ebb and flow. Most stallions can be trained to suppress these behaviors to some degree.

Quite frankly, if there are no mares around in season, I have always found most stallions to be pussycats...

Exceptions everywhere, though - each horse is an individual...

Edited to add: Be aware, though, that stallions can be unpredictable. Even the most well behaved stallion can lose it in the blink of an eye. Despite the fact that they are usually "pussycats" with people, I never recommend a novice handling a stallion...just my opinion...

[divinemisselle]

Gandalf is kept in his own pasture, but he is surrounded on all four sides by buddies; mares, foals and geldings for company. Typically, I only breed for foals every other year, and if I am not breeding to any outside mares, he goes for a year without doing his deed. Is he moody because of this? I'll say no. He gets more upset when his buddies travel out of sight than over the fact that he hasn't bred any mares. He never exhibits signs of frustration or irritability, pretty much keeps an even keel.

I can't say that this is the rule or the exception. I'm just offering my personal experience here. All horses are different and we must assimilate to that fact, taking care for safety number one.

[Palomino06]

We bought our stallion last summer, and he's bred two mares since, and right now he's being kept in the barn because we have no room for him outside. However, if any one of the two mares are standing in the right spot in the field, he can see them through the windows. He does a but of whinnying to them, and may toss his head a bit, but he's never been mean to people when they're standing nearby, and usually this subsides in a minute or two. Caballo also doesn't get "moody" being in the barn isolated from the other horses. then again, he does have a whole bunch of cows around him, and of course we hang around him as much as we can. But our stallion is no ordinary stallion. He was completely starved and probably abused when we had bought him, but he's never been agressive towards me or my family. He's still trying to teach himself to trust us.