Okay, I'm getting a lot of mixed opinions from my horse friends so I thought I would ask everyone here.
I have a 3/4 shire colt that just turned 8 months on Dec 1st. When my vet did his vaccs back when he got here, he said I ought to plan on having him gelded by 8 months. When the vet was out here a few weeks back treating an abscess on my mare's foot, he re-iterated I needed to think about gelding the colt soon because he is so big already (14.1 when I taped him yesterday). He said he'll start developing stud behaviors soon that will be a problem. (note the colt doesn't act studdy at all. He is still very baby-ish in personality, just follows mama around and plays, or feels sorry for himself when I work with him.)
A good friend of mine who raises Friesian crosses argues since my colt is mostly draft, he is slower developing and I shouldn't consider gelding him until his second birthday, to geld him sooner will make him "mareish" in appearance (I know drafts ARE slower to mature, but I have always thought this theory of gelding a horse young making him "mareish" was a myth?) But most of my friends are tuning in with her, saying I should really wait to geld him until I absolutely have too, to maximise his growth potential. To me - he's going to darn well be tall enough, I am not overly concerned with maximising his height!
Generally I would always go with my vet's opinion, but my colt hasn't even dropped yet, and I don't think it's at that "too late" point where I have to consider major surgery on him, right? Anyone have thoughts on a good age to geld draft colts?
I have a 3/4 shire colt that just turned 8 months on Dec 1st. When my vet did his vaccs back when he got here, he said I ought to plan on having him gelded by 8 months. When the vet was out here a few weeks back treating an abscess on my mare's foot, he re-iterated I needed to think about gelding the colt soon because he is so big already (14.1 when I taped him yesterday). He said he'll start developing stud behaviors soon that will be a problem. (note the colt doesn't act studdy at all. He is still very baby-ish in personality, just follows mama around and plays, or feels sorry for himself when I work with him.)
A good friend of mine who raises Friesian crosses argues since my colt is mostly draft, he is slower developing and I shouldn't consider gelding him until his second birthday, to geld him sooner will make him "mareish" in appearance (I know drafts ARE slower to mature, but I have always thought this theory of gelding a horse young making him "mareish" was a myth?) But most of my friends are tuning in with her, saying I should really wait to geld him until I absolutely have too, to maximise his growth potential. To me - he's going to darn well be tall enough, I am not overly concerned with maximising his height!
Generally I would always go with my vet's opinion, but my colt hasn't even dropped yet, and I don't think it's at that "too late" point where I have to consider major surgery on him, right? Anyone have thoughts on a good age to geld draft colts?