What You Need To Know About Cribbing

Cribbing is an obsessive behaviour that horses pick up due to boredom. Most of the time horses who pick up this habit are those that are kept in a stall most of the time and is left with nothing to do. Cribbing involves firmly biting on an object, bending its neck while the horse pulls on the object and then sucks in air. This action signals the release of endorphins in the brain which give a pleasurable feeling for the horse. Cribbing is sometimes also called 'crib biting' or 'wind sucking'.

The long-term effect of cribbing is the damage that it can cause to a horse's teeth. Also, a cribber or a horse that cribs is noticed to have a thicker neck than usual because the pulling motion when cribbing results to an abnormal development of the muscles in the neck. Although the illness colic is associated with cribbing, experts still could not clearly identify its relationship with cribbing. They are not certain whether the colic pain is the reason why horses crib or the air sucking that results when a horse cribs cause the colic.

Cribbing can be treated. Cribbing is developed because of the lack of activity of the horse. Since this is the underlying cause of cribbing, it is important that one needs to think of activities for his horse. One activity would be allowing the horse to come out of the stables and give it a lot of grazing time. One must also think of new ways of feeding the horse. It is advisable to give the horse some pasture feeding or allow him to feed on grass. If this cannot be possible, give the horse some hay to feed on. Hay, compared to grains and muesli, have long chewing times. You can also think of other activities for your horse so that he will not be bored. Good suggestions would be a variety of physical activities and grooming your horse properly.

It must be noted though, that once a horse has been accustomed to cribbing, getting rid of the cause will only minimize the number of time the horse cribs, and not completely take it away from his system. It is important that the behaviour be taken away too. Although this may be a very difficult thing to do because the horse can crib on anything it could get its mouth on, there are a number of ways to approach this. But you must take note that there is no single technique that can treat your horse's bad habit. You need to be patient and try on all the possible techniques until you find that one technique that will work for your horse.

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