Has anyone any experience of putting a horse in with cows? 

We've got a mare and foal staying with us for a few weeks, they arrived last night and we've put them in a separate field to the cows and today they are going in adjoining fields to see how they react. The plan was to eventually put them together but I'm worried with her having the foal and 5 of the cows have calves (2-3 months old).

Do they usually get on well together?

Kath.

Mine have always mixed well together, but to be honest I would be a little wary of putting a foal with them....mares are very protective and  take a while to accept even another mare in the same field as their foal. If the foal is older (APRIL BRED?) then it would probably be ok but suggest you have them seperated with a strand of electric for 3 or 4 days 1st.

Kath.....Until last year we've always had a horse and cattle mixing quite happily together, whever it be cows, either in-calf or with calves at foot, or young bulls and heifers. It was the pedigree animals that she was running with,so they were here to stay :)  which was just as well as my old mare was really quite attached to them. However, I've never had  a mare and foal so don't have any experience of your situation. If you're worried though, it might be best to keep them in separate fields, as it's only for a few weeks anyway - especially if some of the cows are still in-calf, as it wouldn't do them much good being chased around by a protective mare.

Hi there

I would also be slightly worried of how protective the mare is. The other thing to think about is how protective the cows are of their calves. Hmm showing my farmers background here :)  I presume they are beef cows as they have calves at foot, so they may well be slightly more protective. Years ago when I had horses I kept them in the same field as cows without any problems. I did however inherit a lovely Arab who had never been kept with anything but cows and he had hardly any tail as the cows were chewing it.

Alli

Thanks for your replies everyone. :) 

You've all echoed our worries. The owner says she's very quiet (and she seems to be) but after reading your posts we've talked it over and decided it's best to keep them separate, it's not worth upsetting them all and any potential disaster, especially when it's only short term. We haven't any electric fencing so as we need to rotate the grazing we're going to make a temporary opening in one of the fences so that we can rotate the cows bypassing two smaller fields with the horses in.

It's over 20 years since I had horses, it was so lovely to look out of the bedroom window and see them this morning. :)

thanks again,
Kath. x
Edit. Alli, yes they are beef cows. :)

I think they should be fine....My mom put a young mare out with her colt with a bunch of cows and their calves. They were doing just fine, didn't seem to bother each other at all :) Just grazed

They are usually fine; downside is that cows often end up chewing half the horses tails off IME :D