Why do you rarely see cows and horses kept in the same pasture?

Answer 1

Horses are usually considered pets, whereas cattle are normally not. I keep my horse in a separate pasture because he requires a little grain daily and higher quality hay. My cows get grain only once a week and get the lesser quality hay. What it all boils down to is the horse gets his own pasture so he wont have to compete with the cows for food.

Answer 2

Horses are very selfish and even insolent when it comes to interacting with other herbivorous species. When there is limited feed sources (not so much supply), they will literally hog it and protect it as their own against any non-equine that tries to "steal" it from them. They bite, nip, kick, and lunge with their ears back, chasing the offending bovines away.

Sorry to all you horse-lovers, but it's the truth. I've seen it too many times before.

It's particularly bad when horses are not outnumbered by cattle. The greater the equine army, so to speak, the greater chance they have to hoard the feed all to themselves, leaving the cattle out to starve or find less appetizing or quality feed instead. And any bovine that dares to challenge the equine force gets a painful nip in the hindquarters and escorted out of the feed-yard premises to the farthest part of the pen or pasture, leaving that poor bovine to go hungry. Again.

The odds lean in the favour of the cattle if there's a lot more of them than the horses. Two or three horses versus 20 or 50 cows is no match for those equines, and that duo or trio have no choice but to respect the bovine herd and eat only what the cows choose to leave for them. And believe me, a fair size herd of cows treat a small group of horses better than a herd of horses treat a few cows.

Unless one or two of those horses happen to be working horses that are trained to work cattle as part of their job title. Then all bets are off, and they're not allowed to be with any bovines, no matter if they're the only one in the bovine herd!

The thing is, it's really not about horses being pets and cows not. Cows can be pets too, and often are more than many of us realize. Nor is it about one needing better feed than the other. Quite frankly, both can benefit from having the same good quality hay and some grain. But the clincher is the behaviour and the speciesist attitude that horses tend to have against any animal that is not an equine.

And this isn't limited to your standard light-horse breeds, mini horses, ponies and mini-ponies are just as notorious for harassing and bullying bovines around when there's more of them than the cows. They may be small, but boy do they have attitude.

That's why you rarely see horses and cows in the same pasture. It's for both the sanity and comfort of either species that they be kept separate from each other. There are exceptions, but these must be taken with a grain of salt.