gelding with attitude issue after gelding

I had my colt gelded a few weeks ago and he's lost all his personality.
He's living on a friends property and I saw him yesterday and he wont have any part of me. He was standoffish and when I did get to stand at his side patting him he had his ears laid back the whole time.
As soon as I ran my hand down his side towards his hind end but down his belly he would spin his head around and try and snap at me.

I did mange to get a look at his man remaining man area theres no welling or anything but his attitude has changed for the worst, he even kicked my mates dad.

I got the feeling he's lonely as he's in a paddock with no horses around and the cattle are currently in a different paddock away from him. But even then he didnt whinney or come racing over EVEN THOUGH he knew I had feed

Its heart breaking I've lost the horse I loved for many years and then having the colts whole personality changed. It such a change in him. If he was for sale and I was looking to buy him I wouldnt buy him.

I also will be selling him and I know this is not the attitude that people will be looking for.......that is when the market picks up again and after all this hendra virus gets gone!






Does anyone have any idea why the change or what I can do to get him over the anger?

Take your colt and kick him in the field with a bunch of horses...he doesn't hate you...he is just healing, and since he snapped he might have a bit of infection. But the best advice is turn him out with other horses while he heals...and his whole attitude will change.

Got no other horse I can turn him with. He wouldnt even let me breath to him so im going back this week ill dig out some Taj hair I took and take it with me see if that does anything

If he has been gelded for 'weeks', I doubt he has an infection. He would have been very ill or dead by now.

He needs to be put in training-- starting with ground manners. He needs respect and he needs to look up to you as the herd leader. He is trying to show is dominance and you need to show him the error of his ways. There can only be one boss and it has to be you.

Yeh I've been working with him and not letting him put it over me but I don't live on the property and can be there daily (no transport)

It sounds far more like a training issue than an issue caused by his mental status being ruined by his gelding.

Even if you had other horses to turn him out with I would not recommend it. Testosterone and the effects of it can linger for a while. You would not want your horse to get hurt trying to mount anything, or hurt another horse.

Seeing that you were able to touch his ears and pat him with out him reacting until you touched his belly, i'm willing to get there is some kind of pain there. If it were my horse, I would call a vet to come out and have a look just to make sure.

I agree with wetrain17. Because he's seems tender, and just because it's already been a few weeks doesn't mean that he couldn't have recently got infection. And I agree with you, about him being sad or depressed, cause we had a breeding stallion whom we eventually castrated and he was sad. You just gotta find something for him to do. How old is he?

Get a vet out to see what is going on.

I agree with the vet suggestion. If he is in fact tender there could be something you missed during ur inspection. Internal swelling, blooming infections, draining fluid, having a horse castrated opens up for so many different illnesses if not dealt with carefully and correctly. That includes the recovery time. I would call the vet see what they say and let him rest for a week. Here at my show barn I had the pleasure of exercising a QH reining stud for several months as stallion handling and management is a part of my training, and one month his owners, an old couple that were retiring out of the show horse world decided to geld him and take him back to their farm out of state. Well he was gelded (and this was a 12 year old stud) a nd suddenly the horse dropped into what seemed like an emotional depression. He was lethargy, unwilling to work, and had agression issues (lingering imfluence of testasterone) Well the reason was because he had spent more than half of his life a breeding stud that when cut he experienced a great drop in the chemical compound that make up his psychological persona. The big T is a strong hormone and influences the stud greatly, so the sudden rejection of T can cause rapid imbalances in mood and behavior. Almost like menopause for males, lol. However in his case it was a "proud cut" meaning that after about two weeks rest with turnout, he was pretty much back to his stud attitude. Unfortunately this is the consenquence of the proud cut stud. They lose the ability to breed, but keep all the delightful behaviors that came with it. :)
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