How do cattle live in a herd without conflict?

Answer 1

A beautiful system called the "pecking order" or dominance-submissive hierarchy exists in a herd of cattle which minimizes conflict and reduces instinces of fighting. Always one animal in a herd is the dominant one, and the others are submissive to that dominant animal and often one to another. Dominance/submissiveness hierarchies in a herd may switch occasionally, but the scuffles that occur in head-to-head shoving matches for the rights and privileges to a dominant place in the bovine hierarchy don't last very long. Most of the time you will see conflicts arrive within a herd of cattle is when a new animal or several new animals are introduced into a current herd. Then a few short battles commence that often only last for a few hours before it's all done and everyone settles down to graze, or lay down and chew their cud.

Cattle are very social animals and thrive and live to survive in a social herd-bound environment. That is the second reason why cattle are able to live in a herd without conflict. Social animals that get along when they are in a well-established hierarchy--or sometimes even a partnership or friendship, as that is seen often in cattle herds--get along with each other very well indeed.