posted 8 years ago
I have experience with this, though I was not happy with the results.
First I would not worry too much. That kind of goes for a host of topics. The first is the hardiness of cows and cross Highland with others to get hardiness. All ruminants love the cold. For instance both sheep and cows have a preferred temperature of 28 degrees, that would be like us preferring 70 degrees in our houses. But there are some things a person can do to make life better for ruminants like cows and sheep. The first is to provide 50 degree water, which is easy enough to do. The second is to make sure when it gets cold, to feed them. They need calories (called energy in livestock terms), and so when it gets really cold, they eat a poke of feed (hay). But doing so, their 4 stomachs act as furnaces and keep them warm, they just need a place to get out of the wind. It can be super cold, just out of the wind. This even includes sissy dairy cow breeds, so hardiness is no a big concern. Get a breed that has taste.
The second thing you may not have to worry so much about is predators. I have a lot of sheep, quite a few acres, and in 9 years have never had a sheep get struck by a coyote though they are all around me. Good fences are enough for me. I was pretty worried at first, so I understand why, but it really is nothing to overly worry about.
But I did run cows with my sheep once. It did not work out. In part because the cows liked to chase sheep, reducing their weight and the weight of the sheep. They also liked to rub on my woven wire fences (really the only fencing to get for sheep. I never had luck with electronet. I had 1000 feet given to me and ultimately gave it away; the sheep ran right through it. You might have a different outcome though where you don't have woolies). Still with them rubbing on the woven wire it ultimately fell down and the cows and sheep got out. I had $37,000 in woven wire, and was not about to let $1400 cows destroy it; so the cows grew wheels and went to the slaughterhouse. But while I would not run cows with my sheep due to the effects of weight loss, the fence issue could be dealt with by putting an off set hot wire that gives the cows a poke when they go to scratch their hides on the fence. That is cheap and easy.
I think cows make a great form of predator control. On our dairy farm I watched a Holstein fend off a coyote from her calf until we finally got a shot off and saved the calf. Ultimately a homestead type of farm is not going to be that big to draw in coyotes that much anyway. They are opportunists, and as long as they can get a better meal elsewhere, they will. It is kind of like thieves. Yeah they can break into a bank and get a boatload of money, but there are so many deterrents that they go after liquor stores instead. In the coyote world, seeing a big bully of a cow means those rabbit and deer look like a better pursuit of supper.
So I might rethink the Highland just on account of taste, maybe use the electronet for cross-paddock fencing and install woven wire up as perimeter fence, add a offset electric wire to keep the cows off it if you feel weight loss by chasing is not so much of an issue for you, but other than that, I it sounds like you have a sound plan.