New Livery - Windsucking Help!

Again, thanks for the replies.

He does wear a collar (by owners choice) and it stops him immediately. He just goes back to eating his hay!

He rarely seems to do it in his field, but when he does, it's on the metal gate.

I'm unaware of the diet he's on at the moment, but he has lots of grass and hay.

I also found out last night that he weaves.
 
JennyConnor said:
Again, thanks for the replies.

He does wear a collar (by owners choice) and it stops him immediately. He just goes back to eating his hay!

He rarely seems to do it in his field, but when he does, it's on the metal gate.

I'm unaware of the diet he's on at the moment, but he has lots of grass and hay.

I also found out last night that he weaves.
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Horse welfare experts consider anti ribbing collars to be at best cosmetic (you are preventing the behaviour but not the physical cause of stomach acid) and at worst cruel.
Equine science folk have been heard to compare it with chopping a smoker's fingers off so they can't light up.
Collars are barbaric, IMO.
S :)
 
Plus, don't forget that a scope doesn't show the whole gut, horses can scope clear and still have hind gut ulcers.

I wont use anti cribbing collars as I feel about them the same way that Shils does.

I think a lot of people don't realise (or don't want to know) how good prey animals are at not letting their distress and/or pain show. I watched a very interesting programme that showed how you can't judge how a horse is feeling by observing its behaviour. They put heart monitors on the horses and then exposed them to various stimuli and the ones that looked 'calm' had really high heart rates and were actually very stressed. The ones that wouldn't go near the stimuli and napped and reared had lower heart rates.

What I'm saying is that just because the horse eats with his collar on, doesn't mean that preventing the cribbing doesn't stress him or cause him pain (if he cribs due to ulcers). Eating doesn't = no stress/pain.
 
I'd usually agree with you Shilasdair as a collar (the same as an antiweave grill) is a preventative not a cure, but he genuinely seems happier and content with his collar on; whereas I can imagine some horses stress and fret more as they can't do their natural routine and habit.

I believe it works in his favour as without it he stands cribbing, but when it's on he eats his hay :)
 
JennyConnor said:
I'd usually agree with you Shilasdair as a collar (the same as an antiweave grill) is a preventative not a cure, but he genuinely seems happier and content with his collar on; whereas I can imagine some horses stress and fret more as they can't do their natural routine and habit.

I believe it works in his favour as without it he stands cribbing, but when it's on he eats his hay :)
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Please, take the collar off and let him crib/wind suck if he needs to.
You mention that he's started weaving; this might be due to the increased stress and desire to flee from the gut pain (weaving is a locomotory stereotypy).
You sound caring - speak to his owners and banish the collar?
S :)
 
Shilasdair said:
Please, take the collar off and let him crib/wind suck if he needs to.
You mention that he's started weaving; this might be due to the increased stress and desire to flee from the gut pain (weaving is a locomotory stereotypy).
You sound caring - speak to his owners and banish the collar?
S :)
Click to expand...

For now, I'm going to leave it up to his owner as I don't want to get involved when it's not my horse (unless it's causing obvious distress) I'm hoping once he's settle on our yard, he'll cut it down as it's pretty stress free up there!
 
My old horse cribbed when he was fed, he was in the same stable for nearly 8 years and none of the other horses ever started doing it.
 
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