We bought a horse from Louisiana that came from a ‘rough’ field. He lived with crabby broodmares, some horned cattle, barb-wire fencing, gators in places in the rough fields. Barb wire tacked up on trees and T-posts to keep them in. He was a yearling, really nice horse and HAD NO marks on him despite his living situation. Very self-preservation type thinker, stayed out of harms way.
The cowboy owner of the ranch/farm talked about making extra money Gator Roping to remove them for others. These were big gators who could snack on calves, so they had to be removed from the fields, pasture ponds. Told us some stories of his adventures! He said any gators they had ‘here at home’ were just little ones, nothing over 4ft. Horses and gators just would move aside if they met in a field, on the farm lane, didn’t bother each other. His dogs were bigger ones, cattle dogs like Catahoula types to bring them up out of the brush. So not a good size for his gators.
This guy had kept this horse since it was a weanling, boarding it for the owner. I guess horse must have learned by observation about gators, in just avoiding them. I would worry about a horse who was extremely curious, sticking his nose into everything, checking stuff out closely because he might be bored or just nosey. That one might get bit. Not sure how badly gators smell, if that might not be attractive to the horse, keep him from close-up sniffing.
On the dog thing, you might want to silence any dog tags. Gators learn FAST and at the State Parks with the WARNING ALLIGATORS signs, they have learned to enjoy dogs as snacks. We talked to the Ranger when camping at one, with the funny sign of DO NOT MOLEST THE ALLIGATORS. He said for some reason a number of folks camping CAN NOT leave the gators alone when they are sunning on the banks of the ponds. Many have small dogs on leashes, think it is funny when the dog barks and acts fierce towards the gator. Those people will let the dogs get VERY close to the gator, then are shocked when the gator jumps 4-5 feet and grabs the dog, slides into the pond. This is even with owner pulling on the leash, they can’t hold gator out of the water or pull dog out of his mouth. Dog is gone for good! Ranger said you can see the gator tense, blink, when it hears the dog tags jingling as owner is walking along. It is like ringing the dinner bell! Gator does NOTHING but lay there, people and dogs do this to themselves by getting much too close despite ALL warnings of signs, Ranger suggestions to owners, then gator has another snack. Warning signs are posted everywhere, people think “they are more special” when approaching gator with leashed dog and LOOK the gator isn’t doing anything!
So my thinking is horse can get used to having gators around, maybe your farm location keeps them “picked up” or removed from their ponds. Even so, gators will dig under fences, get into previously “safe” ponds, so you do have to keep an eye out for them ALL the time.
A person we met had his mini donkey get grabbed by the nose, was fighting to get loose from a BIG gator so it wouldn’t get pulled into the pond. Man managed to get it loose (a VERY dangerous practice without a gun and I don’t think it is legal to shoot them), then had the DNR come get the gator because he told them he WOULD shoot it. He had no-climb fence, dug bottom into the ground, but gator had dug under it to reach the pond anyway. Scary story!! I don’t know any stories about horse having problems, but there probably are some who have had issues.
Maybe no ponds or wet places in the fields, horses getting watered out of tanks would be a big start to not having problems with gators.
