Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Other Livestock
Horses can be mixed or rotated with other livestock to maximize the use of the pasture. If
you run cattle and horses together, aggressive horses might chase calves, or horned cattle
might go after meek horses, but usually there is no problem at all. If you let cattle rotate
with horses in a pasture, they may clean up some of the mature grasses left behind by the
horses. Because horses and cattle have different parasites, the life cycles of horse parasites
will be broken during the time the cattle are on the pasture. Sheep, by contrast, which tend
to eat the center of a plant and leave the tall, tough outer leaves, don't really contribute to
the health of a horse pasture.
Parasite Contamination
Horses shed parasite eggs in their feces, then the larvae hatch on the pasture and are inges-
ted by grazing horses. Parasite larvae are very tough, and it takes extreme dryness, heat,
or cold to kill them. The more crowded and overgrazed a pasture, the worse the parasite
recontamination problem. One horse on 5 acres won't have as large a parasite load as will
five horses on 1 acre.
