How can you tell if a gelding handed over both of ‘em?

[HorsesinHaiti]

The pony in question - approximately 15 according to his teeth, was purchased as a gelding about 3 years ago by a doctor on campus who gave him to a friend of mine when the doc left in November. For the last year, Cas hasn’t usually had pasture-mates though there are occasionally other horses staked out to graze in the same fields where he is staked out (there are no dedicated pastures here where we have a bad shortage of farmland, and the horses here are trained to stake out relatively safely). Before then, he had a mare friend kept at the same place by the same doc. They weren’t turned loose together, just staked out together. There are no tales out and about of him trying to mount her that I have heard. His new mom is in California for six months, and I am playing Pony Auntie for her.
After 4 months of him basically being a pasture potato, I finally had a chance to take him out for a WT ride around the area for a couple hours. He was eager and interested. Wanted to stop and sniff each pile of horse poop we passed. When we got up to a big field where people stake out horses to graze, he was very talkative and interested in the others. To be expected, he doesn’t get much chance to socialize. But there was one mare he seemed really interested when we passed her the first time – first horse we passed close to on the ride – and it took some encouragement to send him on. Coming back toward her after a lap around at WT, he tried to run off with me, stopped and sniffed briefly with another horse, then went on. Getting back towards the mare, he tried to take off towards her and then got kinda gaga interested, not just sniff interested. Drags me over, lots of low whickering and eager sniffing noses and then he starts with the lip curl thing, repeatedly. She shows interest in him but doesn’t squat for him, certainly doesn’t run him off either, they want to sniff a bunch. After I got him out of that field he was calling around for the rest of our ride anytime he thought he heard another horse, but wasn’t trying to take off again.
I figured he maybe had been gelded late, so he kept some stud habits. That is, until I picked out his feet after the ride. Then I noticed that his scrotum on the near side was hanging lower and tighter than it was this morning, as if it were partly ‘occupied’. It wasn’t as low as on a full stud, certainly not like on a boar or a buck goat, but not like I saw in the morning. I don’t remember any of the schoolie geldings I used to ride looking like their ‘former homes’ had anything in them. I have no idea who did his gelding or when it was done. The last vet who took a quick look at him said, ‘gelding’, but Cas wasn’t relaxing after a couple hours work then. There will be a group of US vets here including a horse specialist in about 10 days to train some new graduate vets. I’d like to ask them to double-check his ‘status’, as an interesting question that the new vets will surely encounter from time to time. I’d also hate to sound like the clueless paranoid Auntie – anything other useful signs I should be looking for?

[Laurierace]

The easiest way to know for sure is to pull blood and check his testosterone level.

[Pancakes]

Agreed, the best way to tell for certain (other than exploratory surgery) is to draw blood for hormone levels.

What you may have seen in his scrotal area is edema, which is not uncommon in some geldings from time to time and has many different causes, or an inguinal hernia. If for some reason he was castrated but the inguinal ring was not closed fully (why this would be I'm not sure if he was castrated correctly), he could have some bowel slipping in and out of the ring...but that is much less likely, and he would most likely have colic signs if that was the case.

There is something else known as the "sexy gelding syndrome" (I couldn't make this name up if I tried, people) where there is a tumor in the pituitary gland, similar to PPID (equine Cushing's), and excess testosterone is produced despite testicular castration. He doesn't have a sway back, pot belly, trouble shedding, brittle hair coat, or increased urination/thirst, does he?
It's a much rarer thing, but if he's exhibiting stud-like behavior (which I'm not entirely convinced of), it's still on the list of possibilities.

[HorsesinHaiti]

How long can you hold a blood sample for a testosterone test? The only vet lab that might be able to do that is in the capital three hours away, and there's no guarantee that samples would be read quickly. That's even assuming that they can do that test, since it isn't a very advanced lab. The lab is focused on contagious diseases.

[horsekpr]

I once asked an old vet in kentucky about the possibility of a horse retaining a testicle,and he said," Well....Us vets ain't too smart , but , most of us can count to two." :lol:

[joharavhf]

My pony gelding also had a fullness to his scrotum, and a "palpable" ball like structure. SO much so that my vet declared him a stallion when I bought him and put my mare on regumate so that it wouldn't cause problems - haha.

Anyways, she was saying he must have been a cryptorchid. I called the breeder and the breeder's vet and they both said they got 2 balls out.

So, I took him to the local vet clinic and we did a testosterone challenge. Basically, they take some blood and do a baseline testosterone levels...Then they inject Hcg - a hormone that should spike the testosterone if he was indeed a stallion. Then we drew blood again at different intervals.

Turns out that the little bugger WAS a gelding. As he got fitter and fitter the "ball" went away and the scrotum shrunk. Best I can figure is that it was excess fat.....

Good luck!

[birdsong]

Even a gelding can mount and ejaculate. Friends new gelding had full stallion behavior..rounding up the mares and chasing away the other geldings until a long while had passed more than a year!

When she separated them he would run the fenceline and scream all day to his girls. He was checked and found to be fully castrated.

Sounds like he has been alone too long and has to be socialized again.

[Dapple Dawn Farm]

I'm thinking of having my horse's testosterone level checked due to his "studdish" behavior but how common is it to have a cryptorchid? I liked the comment by horeskepr's vet about "being able to count to two".

[Equibrit]

Did his old mare tie out buddy look like the new mare he met?

[slc2]

More common than cryptorchidism is 'gelding thinks he is a stallion for no particular reason'.

Most vets CAN count to two.

Most vets don't geld a horse unless they can FEEL two down, as well.

If you're in the islands and it was a pony, maybe someone did the gelding that COULDN'T count to two! With a pocket knife, while drunk or very very annoyed, it is, after all, possible.

'Something there' can be swelling or a hernia or the end of the muscle that's cut off to geld them. Years ago when I was a youth, my trainer insisted I call the vet immediately when she saw 'something there'.

The vet laughed her a** off at the trainer's ignorance. The trainer's parents had kept a few Paint stallions and she was convinced she knew everything, and that my horse had some deadly cancer - OR....she was trying to convince me of that because she was bored on a Thursday or because I looked slightly skeptical at one of her pronouncements in the past...she had a long memory....

The 'dangerous growth' was the end of the muscle that gets cut. 'MY MY he had a big pair', said the vet, ROFLMAO!

[HorsesinHaiti]

Thanks for the information, folks!
Some pix:
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n...ampuspony1.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/P1010040.jpg

Sorry, I didn’t have a downloadable camera on hand when his neither apartments seemed to have out the no vacancy sign.
Quality control here isn’t nearly as good as in the US, nor is persistence in getting situations completely solved. This is the pony who came home a couple weeks ago with only 2 of 4 feet done. The vet tech can count, but when Cas gave him grief about his back feet the tech gave up. So it isn’t so crazy to wonder what’s in there…

Slc2, I can totally see a tech here leaving plenty of muscle behind, and that would explain the ‘hide and seek’ element. Surely by 15 he would have lost a colt’s ability to play testicular hokey pokey! And if he was gelded late, he’d be in that 25% or so that still remember knowing what hanky panky is.

Pancakes, I should have put the photos up earlier. His coat and drinking are fine. Edema is a thought to check out.

Joharavhf, your guy does have some similarities to mine. Cas is pretty out of shape from lacking free turnout and work, there may be some fat back there.

I’ll ask the horse specialist what he thinks might be going on, since we will have access to him and the trainees will be practicing farrier skills on his feet (I’ve been working him on his manners, of course!). He obviously needs more exercise, more chances to socialize, and a bit more brakes on his face – all of which are in the works.

[joharavhf]

Wanted to add for the OP:

My gelding was gelded at 2 years old - a tad late here in the USA. Also, my guy's "ball" did go up and down. When we palpated he pulled it up, when he was relaxing it was down. The vets were all stumped by that. I read a TON about cryptorchids and this seemed like it could be that....

But alas, lab tests don't lie. At least in most cases they don't!!!! :D

[HorsesinHaiti]

Cas is a spry 8 year old, not 15, and is still plenty capable of pulling both nuts up just as high as he wants! :winkgrin: He was never gelded. I hadn't cared to get far enough under him to look for scars, its a long stoop down for me and he does have that back feet hangup.

His mom is coming next week with stronger brakes. We got hold of her by phone last week, but she didn't want to geld him the week before she comes down without seeing him first. Then it's her decision what she wants to do with him.

[joharavhf]

Cas is a spry 8 year old, not 15, and is still plenty capable of pulling both nuts up just as high as he wants! :winkgrin: He was never gelded.


SURPRISE!!!!!! At least you have a good sense of humor about it :eek:

[HorsesinHaiti]

Well, me bad for not recognizing 'em when I saw 'em. In my defense, I only ever had access to horses at county park and university owned stables. No stallions allowed by order of the lawyers! So he's the first one I've ever gotten close enough to that I could peek under. Cattle and goats I've dealt with, and they carry their manparts way lower.

He's certainly giving me a crash course in horsekeeping. We're just trying to keep the 'crash' part figurative instead of literal.

[Horsedoctor]

Just for info purposes, drawing blood for estrone sulfate levels is much more reliable than testing for testosterone when determining if there is a viable testicle in the body.

[HorsesinHaiti]

I sent off the employee bus this morning, and biking back home I came up behind an older lady friend from church headed to market on her pony. Full traditional Haitian setup. She was sitting sideways on a pack frame with empty 3'x3' baskets dangling on both sides. Pony wore just a hand tied halter and single lead rope made out of rope handmade from a palmleaf like grass, rather rough textured rope. I noticed he had full manparts dangling below almost ala goat. He was fairly skinny by US standards. We chatted as we rode along.

I asked how he went, did he give her trouble if he came across mares? She said no, he was older though she didn't remember his age. She also mentioned that lacking much to eat kept him less interested as well, though she mostly mentioned his age.

Haitians rarely geld, but we don't see as many people in the hospital due to horse accidents as you would think for the gear they use even on stallions. The rope halters can bite pretty hard, and give more control than you would think. The horses work hard for a living. Most of the horses don't seem to get a full load of calories unless it is the height of rainy season, though not all of them are skinny. Most horse owners I've talked to wish they could feed better. When you can't fully feed and pay school for your own kids, though, the animals just get by. FYI I've been helping a local group get an HPI (Heifer International) project going to help introduce more cut-and-carry feed, to help people come up with options.

And no, Cas' mom and I don't have him in a goat rope halter and pack frame.