Horses grazing with Sheep and Cattle

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kerrylou123

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My very friendly horses seem to have made a few new friends. We have gained 3 sheep, and a cow! God knows how the cow got in, as fences are still fine! But is this likely to cause any problems until we get the farmer to collect his animals from our land?

Thanks in advance
 
One pony on my yard loves having sheep in her field with her, she plays with them and has great fun!

On the other hand my loan horse recently had an invasion of sheep into her field. (I was not warned at all and was fuming). The end result was a shaking, sweaty and lame horse...

Also, the paddock where the sheep were moved from (overlooking my field) was trashed by them!
 
However, reading that back I see your worry is possibly longer term. Te reason I had problems with my horse is because she was TERRIFIED of the sheep. If this wasn't a problem I can see no issue at all, like I said, the pony not scared of them loved them to bits and all was peaceful.

I have no experience with cows at all, my main concern would be if I had to poo pick for them as well to keep my field tidy?
 
thanks guys!

My horses are loving the extra company, and seem to have made great friends with the cow. As we arrived, All five of them (4 horses and cow) we happily grazing together! I'm not so keen however, after finding somebody (assuming the sheep) have taken a liking to my electric fence battery pack, and have eaten through the wires! That will teach me to leave in turned off!
 
I might keep the cow, save him from slaughter!! Perhaps I could pass him off as my new horse. Afterall, he appears to have a great jump, becuase Im not able to find anywhere he managed to get through!
 
4 Highland Cattle have adopted my fields and are no problem - but I certainly don't poo pick after them - horse is more than enough! We also get adopted by sheep. Neither bother Horse and she is very happy with them.
 
The only problem with horses grazing with sheep is those bl**dy green stains
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Our yard is on a sheep farm - the sheep help tidy up the grazing as they eat all sorts that the horses don't - they prefer the short grass while horse long - so all works pretty well really. Also helps with your worm burden on your grazing. The downside is that horses seem to love to roll in fresh green sheep poo
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.....my coblet won't let them in her paddock and chases them out!!
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You should have no problems keeping a cow or sheep with your horses if they get on and if the farmer decides they don't want them back. One thing I will say though is that unless you are already registered and you are planing on keeping any of them you need to register with DEFRA in order to keep them.
 
QR
Both the sheep and the cow will be fine with horses, the only worry I would have is the cow - if it jumped in (which is actually quite likely - some of our clear 7 bar gates) it might want to go back where it came from and thrash your fence in the process.
 
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You should have no problems keeping a cow or sheep with your horses if they get on and if the farmer decides they don't want them back. One thing I will say though is that unless you are already registered and you are planing on keeping any of them you need to register with DEFRA in order to keep them.

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What?

The farmer can't just decide he doesn't want them back and the OP can't just plan on keeping them? As for registering them....they will already be registered with DEFRA, complete with passports stating they belong to the other farmer and should be on his land. You need a holding number to be able to keep livestock too.

OP needs to call him and ask him to collect them and improve his fencing to make sure they don't escape.

Our cows rarely escape, unless they are "bulling" and sense a bull in a neighbouring farmers fields. We tend to co-ordinate the movements of our stock on our land with the neighbouring farmer to ensure there is at least one full field's width between heifers.....stops them escaping.

We certainly don't keep ours behind 7ft high fencing. Cows do not like to be separated from their herd though. I'm surprised a cow has entered the OP's land on it's own and more surprised it's not attempted to get back out.

Keeping cattle is not as simple as keeping horses. Should you decide to buy any cattle for your land you must be aware of the need for routine TB testing, Blue Tongue vaccinations and the like that are required by DEFRA to be carried out. (Actually Blue Tongue may still be voluntary....but TB definitely isn't).
 
We had random sheep in our field for a few months. Sometimes the whole flock! We also get cows that limbo under the lecky tape and stay for a while. They all get along fine.
 
thanks for all replies. I assume the farmer collected his cow today as he has gone. All fences are absolutely fine. Nobody seems to want to claim the little lost sheep tho
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thanks for all replies. I assume the farmer collected his cow today as he has gone. All fences are absolutely fine. Nobody seems to want to claim the little lost sheep tho
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Do they have eartags in? The owner of the sheep can be traced through the tag number in their ears.

I'd probably make a call to Defra for info. I know the cows are located through CTS (cattle tracing service) but obviously that's no help for sheep.

I've not seen a sheep eartag close up, but our cattle ones have their individual (unique) number on them, as well as a number on every tag that relates solely to our farm. Obviously, that doesn't mean to say they belong to us....as we may have sold them at some point...but they are still traceable on the central computers via that unique number. Every change of ownership is listed and if we move our cattle onto another holding's land, that is also recorded in the movement records.
 
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