Cribbing? How do you stop it?!

WildFire

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patandchickens said:
What does he have to chew on *besides* fences. While IMO it sometimes *does* reflect mineral deficiencies, ulcers, and/or stress, an awful lot of the time it seems to be just bored teeth or bored brain.

Therefore it is often useful to see what you can do to give him more to chew on (larger pasture, rotate among smaller pastures; put out some hay; put out more-but-poorer hay; put hay out in a way that makes him work harder and longer to get it). And give him more to think about (some -- not all, but some -- horses enjoy paddock toys, either commercial or "a length of hose or a fortex feed pan", or those balls they can push around to get little bits of grain out if you have nonsandy ground that's safe to eat small bits off of; or a companion or more to watch)

I agree with the previous poster that if it is cribbing as in *windsucking* rather than just beavering, then unless your horse happens to be one of the relatively few that are fixed by a propertly-adjusted cribbing strap (of any of several designs) you may be s.o.l.

For persistant problems, in my opinion the best compromise between safety and humane horse management is to make everything SAFE to crib on, put metal (or a strand of hotwire, if the paddock is not too small) over most of the cribbable surfaces, and then LET him crib. Give him a safe area to work on and let him do what he's got to. This would be my last choice, not my first; but sometimes it does come down to that.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat
So your saying to try to give him more brain exercise? Hmm...never thought about that. He might be doing it cause he's bored! Thanks. This is all alot of help guys.
Wild
 

ridinglizzard

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I got my more recent horse addition at an auction last Nov. He is an AMAZING older gelding, just soooo gentle and laid back. Awesome for my 6 year old. But he cribs sooooo bad. He will latch on to wood and strain his entire body so hard. He has worn his top teeth absolutely flat doing this. We have had him in a large pasture since we brought him home, housed with 6 other horses. But he will leave them to go stand by himself an go crib on a half-fallen-down tree or the wood gate, or even on the wall of the old wooden barn in the pasture. It must be just so engrained in him. I love him so much, and am sad for him as this truely seems like a deep seated mental health issue for him.
 
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