Why would a horse steal a cows calf?

flaxen

flaxen

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This has amused me a bit until tonight. We have a native pony mare staying and since she came she has been turned out with our incalf cows as they dont need much grass as we dont want them fat and being a native neither does she. They have all lived happily together, they all graze around each other and quite often see them all laid down together asleep on a morning.

The other morning one of the cows calved and the pony was quite taken with it, they were all running round like loonies and it was following her.
I caught her and put her in a spare field next to some other cows, calfs and a bull who all went through the fence as there was more grass in where pony was. She never bothered with these calves at all.

I rode her today and as she has piled the weight on I tried her back in with her cow friends on the short grass. For 3 hrs all was fine, theyve grazed quietly and the pony has ignored the calf until all hell broke loose, she has kicked the living daylights out of the calved cow, chased her round the field and through the fence and stolen the calf back and is mothering it, the calf is quite happy to follow and cow with her, shes even whickering to it.

Ive taken the mare out and reunited the cow and calf although the calf was more interested in where the pony had gone than its mother.

The pony is not infoal and has never had a foal. Im baffled by this behaviour and have never come across before in different species.

This has me stumped, so if anyone has any ideas Id be very grateful.
 
My (at the time barren) mare did this- she was the only horse in with the cows... And very broody (until I put her her in foal and she decided she really wasn't that bothered!) she stole one first, then three or four. The noise was deafening! Cows were removed in the end- it was her field, rather than hers... If the cows were there first, I'd move the pony.
 
It is the horse field and has been since 2009 and the cows used to share it with my broodmare and her foal but there been no horses here for a couple of mths and it needed grazing down and these are late calvers and is easier for me to watch them here as i can see them from the house. I have taken pony out but dont have another field for her that is suitable or has a water trough in it.
 
We tried for days with my mare... I lived 200 meters over from her field- about seven or eight streets of houses- and the noise woke me up a fair few times... I'd assume a good couple of hundred people also heard it. When I went up at first light the last night before we separated them she had two or three behind her in the corner, and was facing off to their dams (are they dams when they're cows?) sorry- I'm rambling, but no, we didn't find a resolution.
 
I have a few mares who will steal foals. They are always separated until the foal knows who it's mother is, then they can go in, usually a week or so later, and they then take on an auntie role which suits everyone. I have one mare who I know fine well would try to steal calves also if we had any. She's a working cattle horse and although she has no qualms about pushing on the grown cattle, if she were to graze with them and their calves, she'd steal the calves.
 
My old chestnut mare pinched a ginger calf once, from the next field. Her and the calf were perfectly happy, but the poor cow was distraught. Mare wasnt happy when i took the calf back off her :p
 
My horse thought his mum was a jersey cow. She used to wash him all over with her rough tongue and he loved her.

She had a calf and he tried to kill it. We had to remove him from their field. No one told him he was a horse.
 
My New Forest x youngster adopted the yard's pet lamb last year. It was wandering round on the yard when I was leading her in, and she pulled me over to it, started licking it all over and then stood trying to get it to drink from her.

This pony always produces milk (not the colostrum stuff, just milky coloured water) and tries to mother any new horse to the field, but at the same time also behaves like a foal sometimes with the submissive chomping at the mouth. I've had her scanned for tumours, and blood tested for abnormal hormones and everything comes back normal. There are no behavioural ridden or handling with her and the vets just tell me to ignore it!
 
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