Stallion Group-Keeping in Theory and Practice
Version: 2009.06.10
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Part III: Know-How [1]
Group-Management of Stallion Groups
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The reasons for this are manifold. One of them certainly is that many people, especially women who represent the majority of horse owners, unfortunately often cannot or do not want to handle stallions correctly and are too vain, conceited and lazy to have themselves be taught. Unfortunately the law doesn't stop such people from simply castrating their stallions, although he would be obliged to do so, because the castrating of an animal very clearly and severely violates the animal protection law and therefore would actually be punishable by law (see article: Legal charges against the biggest sexual mutilator of animals in Switzerland).
So it has become the norm that there are only very few stallions and that only few people know how to handle them. The majority of horse people have prejudices against stallions - or at least have to pretend that way in order to justify the castration of the own horse.
Due to these circumstances there are already so few stallions that the possibilities to create a group-keeping are already very small. On top of that also comes the displaced vanity of many horse owners towards their horse, which does not under any circumstances want that their horse-"baby" ever have one scratch or bite wound. - They rather cut off their stallion's testicles, amputate his sexuality and his natural hormones, that can be seen at lot less easily at first sight than bite wounds and scratches - even if those, contrary to the cut off testicles, would heal.
Also, the fighting and impressive display behavior of stallions enormously impresses us humans and lacking horse knowledge and interest in the nature of male horses unfortunately makes many horse owners falsely believe that stallions, for their entire lives, would either want to be kept alone and isolated or be castrated. Many also believe that stallion group-keepings would require more space than other forms of horse keeping, simply because there hardly are any stallions and stallion group-keepings which could prove the opposite and dispose of such prejudices.
But since one more frequently only uses horses for pure pleasure and fun, and not only for work, transportation or war any more, one has begun to question various aspects in connection with horses. Thus, one has found out that body language is a key to the horse and that isolation, or rather, the chasing away as a punishment during ground work is much more appropriate to the species and effective than the previously existing punishment method "pain".
If one does not just use this principle of species-appropriate communication, which is used especially by lead horses in a herd and which also used by "horse whisperers" such as Monty Roberts, Pat Parelli or Klaus Hempfling very successively, for the "forming of a herd" with a human being ("Join-up"), but also for the "forming of a herd" with other horses, in our case actually with stallions among themselves, meaning not "Join-up" with a human being, but with a second stallion, one thereby not only simulates nature just like horse whisperers do in the round pen, but also just as amazing effects can be accomplished. Effects which seemed not possible so far, simply because of lacking know-how.
The stallion group-keeping of Ferdi Wirth is such an effect. It proves that this principle works and that even if, just like Ferdi, one knows absolutely nothing about this principle, one can very much indeed get even aggressive and difficult stallions used to each other and keep them in a group. All it takes is the unwavering will to not fall prey to one's own laziness and to convenient means such as castration, but to try one's best every day anew and to try everything except castration in order to keep the stallions in a group. And as has become clear afterwards, one does not even have to really try very hard once one knows what it's all about.
As a principle, with the keeping of stallions in a group it is sufficient to be so flexible that one does not impose upon oneself any kind of a time limit when the stallions should function together as a group, or even better, one does not impose upon oneself this goal, that the stallions must constantly form a harmonic group, at all. No, just like in wildlife, stallions who obviously do not want to tolerate the presence of other stallions around them must have the possibility to be separate from them. If the available space therefore is not sufficient, as it would be in wildlife, the human being just has to simulate this with another form of separation, for instance with a simple electrical wire, from the rest of the stallion group.
Nothing however is forever, especially not in wildlife, in nature or in a stallion group. A stallion who today cannot abide the presence of other stallions perhaps already tomorrow has had enough of the isolation and solitary confinement. This need needs to be satisfied by the human being just like the need to not be together with other stallions, and he must be let back together with the others. And most of all, the human being must be able to recognize this need just as well! It's always the stallion who decides when or even if at all he wants to be in the group and when not, and it's always the human being who has to comply with this need by separation with a separating fence and allowing them back together again, if there is not sufficient space, such as a small prairie, where the stallions could do this themselves.
That the human being has to comply with a need of an animal unfortunately sounds everything but like something cool or desirable to most horse owners. That's why I thought of a good name for the method of flexibly letting the stallion together with the group and separating him again based on his behavior, in other words on the principle of "the stallion calls the shots". A name which reflects the incredible power which, based on the congruence of its underlying principle with the one of the natural forming of stallion groups in wildlife, lies within this method. I call this method "Stallion Nine Men's Morris".
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