Let them battle it out?

We're in a situation right now where we're offering our field to help out a family we know, house their horses before they leave for another province. It's not a formal board, they pay for the cost of hay for the five of them, and we keep their two with our three- it's a nice deal, my horses are getting a better quality hay now too, my mother is stubborn and not as horse-savy as she likes to think, which isn't exactly the point.

I've got three, Tango is my horse, Chick and Heidie are our ponies, and they've got two, Stellar their pony and Chester their horse (Chester isn't here yet).

We introduced Stellar to the horses (Chick and Stellar are both POA, did the same circuit, I think they know one another, personally, they're very friendly and both seem to trace back to the same place), the girls were more or less fine but Tango is being a bit of a bum, he's been chasing her around since yesterday, getting the girls into it- it's very chaotic at the moment. (What I'm worried about is the two new horses have all 4 shoes, and according to the kid "stellar is VERY fragile, she NEEDS all 4 all the time" maybe she does, but I don't want anybody getting hurt).

If I got my way, we'd have two extra paddocks (but no, we need a place to keep the chickens ) and the field would be split down the middle, but we can't right now SO! What do you guys think? Should we let them battle it out? Chester comes tomorrow, no idea what will happen then, it's been suggested to just keep him in the paddock but I don't agree, they all need turnout and that's a VERY difficult rotation, I think they'll establish their 'pecking order' and it'll be fine, but everybody around here sees it differently.

I think in a week or so it should calm down. I recently moved Cin to a stable where he is in a paddock with 4 other horses, 3 of which have shoes (he doesn't). One of them is a very dominant TB. He has had his share of bite and nip marks but has come through with no problem. I haven't seen any damage to him caused by the other horses kicking him with their shoes.

From my understanding, in all group situations you need to just let them figure out their pecking order on their own UNLESS someone is extremely violent...and trust me, you would know if that happened. If you don't let them work it out, there will always be issues between them until you finally do and then what happens if there is some sort of emergency and they HAVE to be put together for even a few hours???

I would say the same thing. Let them sort out the pecking order unless one is overly aggresive. Otherwise they will always have issuse with each other. It should begin to settle down in 1 - 2 weeks time. Best of luck! :)