I've been mulling this over, and I can't quite get over it.
What the hell is up with the cows? How do they fit into Equestrian society, and what about the other animals like Pigs and Goats?
The cows are fully sentient, but they all live in that barn and you never see them anywhere (except I think there was one episode where a cow was in Ponyville once)
It seems to me like they are slaves or something, either way it seems fishy...

Look at it, that is the face of oppression. they weren't running from a snake, they were running for freedom

903713

It's official, ponies are slave holders.

903713
They're there for racist jokes of course!

No the cows provide milk, ponies provide land shelter and protection. Also the simple facts with hooves jast look.

Come to think of it, those cows sure do look terrified

Good point.

For my headcannon the races like cows and sheep are fully sentient but have no whatsoever control over the magic of the world. Without hands they can't really can take of themselfs so the ponies decide to take care of them in echange of their natural milk or wool.

Of course there the ocasional racists that consider they are no better than beast of burden because of there lack of magic, but Applejack isn't one of them.

I can see this being notable, but not worth having a thread dedicated to it..

Personal head canon time!

Earth pony magic affects the environment around them, crops produce more food, and animals increase their production or milk, wool, and other products. The animals also slowly gain a significant degree of sapience. Some of the learn how to talk, like cows, or develop highly defined personalities, like Angel Bunny and his jerk attitude.

The ponies take care of them in order to get products and manage the environment in a way that best suits everyone in the long run.

The cows could leave if they wanted to, but gradually the magical effect would wear off, and their sentience/sapience would disappear as well.

So the cows are really in a "too good to reject" situation, they leave, they lose all the benefits, including the ability to talk, reason, etc.

Yes, I'm aware of the fridge horror elements of that.

903713
Yeah, the relationship with cows is incredibly creepy.

Thinking about that topic never leads to good things. Even if it's some kind of social contract of milk for food and shelter, it still seems incredibly exploitative and demeaning to shove a group of them into tiny stalls in some cold barn, so you can drain tasty liquids out of them.

But hey, Twi also doesn't have an issue with keeping a dragon as a possibly unpaid servant, so maybe Equestrians are just a bunch of filthy slavers.

903786
Apparently Word of God is that hooved animals are sentient. No Earth Pony magic required.

Though earth pony proximity making animals smarter is pretty much my headcanon too.

903808 Technically all animals are sentient (except maybe sponges), it's sapience that is the real ticker in this discussion.

And as for Spike, he pretty much gets all the gems he needs to survive (and probably a bit more) along with a caretaker who looks to genuinely love him. And depending on your head canon for dragons, that might be a lot more than he would have usually gotten. Is he abused/misused sometimes? Absolutely, but that's more of a general negligence than a specific targeting of him by his scales.

903808

Spike is an assistant. Whether he is paid or just a volunteer is to be decided. Where does he get all of his gems?

903848
Fret not, ladies and gentlemen I'm (more or less) kidding about Spike.

903853
Pittances from Rarity after doing all her hard work for her?

903728

They do keep them in the Racist Barn, you know.

You forgot about the Buffalo. It would appear that this sets a precedent that Bovine creatures are just another sentient race of creatures in the world.

903896

When was the last time you saw Rarity give him enough gems to make a gem cake without him eating them up instantly.

I like to think they can talk but really most of them are just too damn stupid to do much other than graze and sit around the barn. Doesn't mean they aren't treated fairly, or that some of them are a little more proactive, like, what's her name? Daisy? Who went to town to get cookies. And those 2 that were pulling that cart full of anvils, maybe that was a paying job for them.

It's definitely a peculiar set-up. I know at one point someone stated that all animals with hooves could talk or were sapient or something along the lines.

Granted the ponies stampede too, but the way the cows did it early on was kind of eerie, as if they lost all sense of self-awareness. I think of the ponies more as care-takers than slavers or something, because apparently if left to their own devices these animals are totally useless.

The Buffalo and the Donkeys seem to be an exception thus far, and I expect if we ever saw a deer they would also be similar.

Rule of funny, and of convenience. I kind of gave up trying to hold it all together at the end of the Discord episode. In everything I write just assume cows are animals (as opposed to 'people'), and really, really tasty.

It is an interesting problem though. Everything appears to be a 'person', from bunnies on up. I'm trying to think; have we seen any mammalian carnivores (apart from Winona/Opal -- who don't appear to be 'people', as far as I can tell)? Fluttershy's bear is the only other one that springs to mind.

If everything is a 'person', what do gryphons eat? Just fish? How much of a sociopath would you become if everything you ate could have a conversation with you?

The rule of sapience being hand in hoof with having hooves is not true. Pigs are not stated to be sapient.

Fair exchange is no robbery. The ponies only get milk from the cows. The cows get room, board, possibly medical treatment, and chances at other jobs. Sounds like the deal is fair.

As for the argument that they are trapped in small spaces (the stalls in a barn), look at humans. Some countries consider living in cramped apartment complexes the norm. Having a house or plot of land of your own is not universal. Maybe the cows like being in more confined conditions. Bovines and other similar creatures will form a tightly packed ring around the young members of the heard to protect the young from predators (think a wall of horns and hooves stopping a wolf from getting to the calves.). They like being together. Ponies, due to their magic, may have become less dependent on constant proximity to others of their race in Equestria. Cows lack magic, and so have become a tight knit group.

The whole, 'cows running from their slave drivers' idea from the stampede I consider slightly silly. When everyone around you is expressing the same opinion, you will be more likely to follow that idea. It is called mob mentality. It works on humans as well as other social creatures. If the cows are living together all the time, and depend on close social interaction, they may be even more linked into that line of reaction; they likely will follow the leader without question. That would explain the stampede.

This argument can also apply to Sheep. The goats were clearly acting as aids for Iron Will. They may be interns or something. Pigs are just there because the ponies took pity on them.

903786

Good question... Why do they have pigs and chickens for then? Do they butcher them for pet food? (Wynona, Gummy, Owlowicious, and Opalescence eat meat after all.)

You also notice Rarity's dad fishing at one point and Fluttershy giving worms and fish to her various woodland friends.

Ponies have become top of the food chain, if you ask me.

904566 Not everything is sapient. Pigs are not. The hydra was not (Like a cat, it had a personality, just not sapience). Most of the pets are merely in possession of strong personalities (and there is a possibility that so much exposure to earth pony magic has slightly increased their intelligence). Fluttershy may speak to their instincts more than their brains.

Griffons may eat pigs, fish, small, non-sapient animals, hydra (a delicacy, as not many hunters can take down a creature with regenerating/multiplying heads), and some plant matter. Carnivores will eat plants (sometimes to throw up and ease pain, sometimes to act as a supplement to an otherwise strict carnivore diet).

904566 Gryphons and most other sapient predators hunt where ponies don't live, and so avoid animals that can hold a conversation. It would explain the relative few numbers of such gryphons encountered.

904663 Chickens still produce eggs, which canonically ponies consume (Sweetie Belle's attempts at cooking breakfast for Rarity). Pigs act as garbage disposal for any scraps to produce fertilizing manure. Seriously, a pig will eat anything. As for the fishing pony. I personally just wave that off as an oddball, or they intend to use the fish as fertilizer, like native americans on the east coast.

903713 Second class citizens. Cows can't really protect themselves, and have thus been taken in by Equestria as a serving class. As the centuries have gone by, it was discovered that cow's milk is pretty useful.