Gender confusion???

[CarolU]

This is weird...wondering if there is something in the 'air' around here. Last week Zar came in heat and would have nothing to do with my geldings (broke Diablo's heart!) and ignored them completely. Instead she fell in lust with La Dama, a client's mare I have here for retraining. Okay, so I chalked that up to a new horse on the place.

This weekend I took Rosie to Nampa for Vickie and Johnny's clinic (excellent BTW). On Saturday morning she was in horrible, miserable full heat - and head over heels in lust with Sadie, another mare. There were four stallions at this clinic and Rosie would have nothing to do with any of them...she only had eyes...and urine for Sadie (who I admit is just beautiful)...

People say this is a weird year for breeding. But, I have to admit, this is new by me...

[motorgypsy]

Oh well - a couple of years ago of our goat does fell in love with our mini mare. It was so pitiful. She stayed with the mare everywhere she went. The mare tolerated her but was obviously confused by her behavior. It lasted perhaps a month or so before she went back to the herd of goats.

[Boyd R]

Porcy and Dina are in the same boat. Dina wont let no one near her.

[Carol Nelson]

Typical behavior....very typical! :smile:

[cowboy ed]

carol u, maybe that parelli stuff you do has messed up their heads! :lol:

[Barbwire]

OMG! What will the Mormons think? http://www.jammerbabe.com/flotilla/images/smiles/bigeyes.gif

[TrueStepPaso]

:lol:

[cristy]

This doesn't really answer your question but here is something I learned a couple weeks ago...

I have a group of about 12 mares together and on several different occations one mare will come into heat and another mare will start mounting her and acting studdish. I thought this was really wierd and made mention of it to a farmer, he said cows do that all the time, to show the bull that a cow is in heat. Wierd I thought but I guess it made more sense then half my herd being sexually confused. :lol:

I have also heard of this being a sign of a hormone inbalance, had a friend lose a mare bc of this, I guess it not treated if it is severe enough it can kill them. (sounded like a long shot to me but that's what her vet said)

[GeorgeGuns]

Barbwire you slay me!

Cristy thanks for that tidbit, it makes sense.. I don't get it though why a mare IN heat would be the one with the gender confusion, unless its their way of saying "c'mon, let's go to that male stripper club downtown, the boys here don't know how to wear a G!!!"

[motorgypsy]

Forgot to mention - our female cats would do the same thing. Since they don't think about it, it appears to me that the females not in season are just stimulated to male behavior by the hormones since females do also have male hormones. I've also seen males in an all male horse herd do the same thing. Just goes to show that if the first choice isn't available they'll look elsewhere and don't really care what the gender is or the species in the case of our goat and numerous male dogs who really don't care what the fool around with!!