If you’re caring for horses with limited pasture, you may be wondering how they get along with other species of animals.
Because individual animals each have their own unique personalities, preferences, and histories of trauma, this may not apply universally to all horses and the other species they interact with. Still, it should provide a good starting point regarding how well a horse will get along with other animals.
If you’re planning on keeping a horse with anyone new, regardless of species, make sure to carefully monitor their interactions until you are satisfied that there will be no trouble when you go off to attend to other sanctuary needs!
For example, this horse seems to be a good friend of this goose. Like farmed mammal species, whether a horse will tolerate, appreciate, or be outright hostile to living with sanctuary birds like chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys, is very much a question of individual horses. Most horses have no trouble sharing an outdoor space with birds such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese, provided that all species have their specific needs taken care of (like dust baths accessible for chickens or turkeys or accessible ponds for ducks and geese).
In rare instances, some horses may have too much trauma in their background or a more territorial personality and would not be an excellent fit ever safely to live with birds.
If they do get along very well, you still must ensure that there is plenty of space to avoid any situations where a bird (especially a mobility-impaired resident) might get caught underfoot. Also, like most animals, horses will avoid eating food that has been defecated on by another animal if they can, so if you’re going to keep horses and birds together, try to avoid letting the birds spend time where the horses eat.
Although, in some cases, there can be no problem between a horse and a farm bird. They can eat, sleep, drink water and play together. And they can get along very well.”