Horses with cattle

My limited experience with horses and cattle in relatively small paddocks is that horses dominate over cattle and they quickly work out the pecking order. No bad experiences on this end. Again, this experience is limited and I suggest getting input from others before penning them together.

George

We run our draft horses with our highland cattle. No problems. Horses are top in the pecking order. We did have to separate our quarter horse from the highland cattle though. Apparently the quarter horse thought he needed to keep the herd of cattle all herded up and away from the hay feeders.

My horses live with the cattle off and on all year. No problem. I did have one mule that was getting too rough on the calves at calving so I sent him down the road and he’s now in a pack string in the Wind River’s. Other than that, no problem.
It’s interesting to see what different feed they utilize. When the horses have a pasture used up, I can put cows in and they get whatever is left and love it. The reverse is also true.

I’ll chime in too>
i have kept horses with cattle at times over the past 40 odd years with mixed results. had a standardbred gelding that thought he was a cutting horse and pestered the cattle (especially the milk cow) too much. He also herded the sheep to the point that they overheated one day.
another time i had a jersey heifer aroung 5-6 months old that i kept with a mare to keep her from sucking on the milk cow. the heifer pestered the mare until the mare knocked off one of the heifer’s horns… the heifer lived but it was a mess for a while. i suppose it would have been a mess if the kick had connected with her skull, too.
another time, I kept two mares in a farmer’s field with about 30 dry Holstein dairy cows for a summer, and they all got along fine but the horses gained about 300 pounds each by eating free choice silage! a wonder they didn’t colic.
personally I never had a cow, steer or bull hurt a horse , but have heard of it happening and can easily imagine it. off topic, but i also know of a case where a big Tamworth boar killed a horse that he was pastured with…
summary: i think it would depend a lot on the individual animals and what kind of set up you have.
final thought: remember that horses and cattle have different body language and don’t always understand each other’s warning signs well enough to stay out of trouble.

We run a mixed herd. The horses are dominant over everything but our Yak bull, who now seems to pretty much call the shots. I’m debating sawing his horns down a little to blunt them off.