Stable vices - do other horses copy?

MiJodsR2BlinkinTite

MiJodsR2BlinkinTite

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Just a musing really.

Went to see a horse recently and it windsucked (owner had kept schtumm about it, but you couldn't exactly ignore it as it did it twice when I was there - I wasn't best pleased as had over an hours journey either way), I wouldn't have bothered going if I'd known :(

But am just wondering - if I HAD bought this horse and brought it home, whether there would be a likelihood that other horses in my yard would copy the behaviour; it would be just like my blokey cob to pick up on someone else's disgusting habit and think he'd discovered something wonderful to do with himself.

Just pondering basically. This was a real shame, as it was rather a nice little horse which did tick some of my boxes, quite a few in fact, but I know that there are issues such as colic & ulcers plus resultant damage to teeth with windsuckers, plus the general annoyance of it and also the damage it can cause to stable doors and fences which is enough to put anyone off.

Anyone have any experience of this?? Of other horses copying vices like windsucking, cribbing, weaving???
 
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Some years ago my pony was on box rest and the pony opposite him in the American barn was also on box rest. This other pony weaved for England - think front feet coming off the floor as it weaved from side to side - but my pony never started to weave.

Quite a few yards won't take liveries with 'vices'.
 
Unlikely. The reason you sometimes see several horses exhibiting the same vice on a yard is more due to the way they are kept which creates the vice than copying.
 
From my experience some will copy and some vices are copied more easily than others. Kicking the door is massively copied. In the last 17 years on the same yard we've gone from no-one kicking, to a new one coming in with the habit then everyone kicks. Then it stops (I can't now remember the first one that started the habit -I presume it went off yard at some point!) Then it does down and no-one kicks. And now we are back on the up swell of kicking the door being catching from a new one bringing it back.

I have known horses copy weaving behaviour - but that could be down to management rather than true copying. If the horses are kept in for long periods without stimulation and someone works out that weaving is comfortable others will pick up on it and one or more might start to do it as well.

I've never known a horse copy cribbing or windsucking. I've had both over the years.
 
Mmmm.... see I don't have any problem with weaving TBH, other than I would agree that it indicates a management problem somewhere, which as a YO and owner I'd feel that I had not done a good job basically if that sort of behaviour was ensuing.

Its just that cribbing and windsucking - and yes, kicking - are what I would term "destructive" vices, i.e. they have potential to both harms the immediate environment environment AND the horse.

Yes, thinking about it, have seen kicking being copied, ohh that IS one annoying vice!
 
PaddyMonty said:
Unlikely. The reason you sometimes see several horses exhibiting the same vice on a yard is more due to the way they are kept which creates the vice than copying.
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agree. My older mare has lived next to cribbers and weavers and boxwalkers on various yards and she just does her own thing. Stabling near one wouldn't worry me... would I want to *own* one? not unless it was a super duper horse in all other respects, or unless i knew I could manage it in a way that would make the vice irrelevant (e.g. keep a weaver out or occupied all the time etc).
 
The horses that I've known that door kick have learnt to do it through their human carers though. Horse kicks door, so person attend to horse, walks off. Horse kicks door. Person goes back. Horse kicks door. Person calls to horse. Horse kicks door. Person shouts at horse. Horse kicks door. Person feeds horse because they are sick of the door kicking.

Eventually the door kicker gets fed first because everyone is sick of the door kicking and we all just want a quiet life.

Other horses join in because they are not stupid and can see the benefits :D:D I think it's almost always a human-initiated vice.
 
PaddyMonty said:
Unlikely. The reason you sometimes see several horses exhibiting the same vice on a yard is more due to the way they are kept which creates the vice than copying.
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One of my liveries moved to a new area for about 12 months and while there she started cribbing, there were other horses on the yard that did it so the assumption was she had picked it up from watching, a move back here and she was clearly cribbing even doing it in the lorry at shows, after a week or two I got fed up with her in the main barn and moved her back into the outside box she had been in originally, she was obviously happier there and with a good routine, plenty of time out and adlib hay she stopped cribbing completely. This was before we knew about ulcers being linked to cribbing and I now suspect she had developed ulcers in the time she was away, I know she had very little turn out , coming back to where she had been really settled may have allowed them to heal and so the relief given by cribbing was no longer required.

Stereotypical behaviour is nearly always stress related so it makes sense that a yard that is "stressful" for whatever reason may have more horses showing such behaviour than a yard where horses have a less stressful environment or lifestyle.
 
The only horse I've seen try to copy was my appy copying my tb with his weaving.

The tb was weaving away and then th appy had a go......three weaves and he shook his head as off it gave him a head ache and went back to kicking the door for his tea 🤔🤔🙇🙇🙇
 
I've had 2 cribbers, and the current one is also a box walker and a weaver. I've never seen a horse copy any of the behaviours, even when we were on a big yard in a barn environment.

However, cob mare is a dreadful floor scraper at tea time... and low and behold, the cribber started joining in! However I strongly believe this has been to do with me unconsciously rewarding the behaviour as both horses then get their tea so of course, they both carry I scraping at tea time as they get something from it (or they think they do). I am in the process of sorting it out!
 
milliepops said:
The horses that I've known that door kick have learnt to do it through their human carers though. Horse kicks door, so person attend to horse, walks off. Horse kicks door. Person goes back. Horse kicks door. Person calls to horse. Horse kicks door. Person shouts at horse. Horse kicks door. Person feeds horse because they are sick of the door kicking.

Eventually the door kicker gets fed first because everyone is sick of the door kicking and we all just want a quiet life.

Other horses join in because they are not stupid and can see the benefits :D:D I think it's almost always a human-initiated vice.
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I'd agree with this. I have 4 ponies/horses in a very settled herd. One has sweet itch and scratches her butt on the gate so I yell at her. She does this most when I'm at the yard, tail is unrubbed when I arrive. Now small pony who has history of attention seeking behaviour but no sweet itch has started doing it too.
 
PaddyMonty said:
Unlikely. The reason you sometimes see several horses exhibiting the same vice on a yard is more due to the way they are kept which creates the vice than copying.
Click to expand...

probably maybe. I shared a yard with a woman, she had three horses of different breeds and ages-all bloody wind suckers/crib biters-saw them do both (she bred one, had the other two from weaning). I wasn't that happy tbh when she moved in without telling me-lots of damage to fence posts that had to be explained to landlord and then my horse had to go on quite extended box rest. He didn't copy but he was 10yo.

did they copy each other or was it due to how they were kept? youngest one was on ad-lib forage, oldest one on pretty much ad-lib, middle one restricted and prone to slight spasmodic colic. None of them could cope with one of the others missing (i.e. just being led out to field) or any change to routine (e.g. farrier). Neurotic the three of them.

I had a wind sucker as a teen-great pony (long before we knew about ulcers) would not knowingly buy another, drives me mad.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
probably maybe. I shared a yard with a woman, she had three horses of different breeds and ages-all bloody wind suckers/crib biters-saw them do both (she bred one, had the other two from weaning). I wasn't that happy tbh when she moved in without telling me-lots of damage to fence posts that had to be explained to landlord and then my horse had to go on quite extended box rest. He didn't copy but he was 10yo.

did they copy each other or was it due to how they were kept? youngest one was on ad-lib forage, oldest one on pretty much ad-lib, middle one restricted and prone to slight spasmodic colic. None of them could cope with one of the others missing (i.e. just being led out to field) or any change to routine (e.g. farrier). Neurotic the three of them.

I had a wind sucker as a teen-great pony (long before we knew about ulcers) would not knowingly buy another, drives me mad.
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They may well have all been suffering with ulcers, just having adlib hay will not prevent them if they are stress related, weaning time is often the start of stress and ulcers developing, if they are then kept inappropriately then cribbing and other neurotic behaviour can follow, I think they may "copy" when very young but the reason needs to be there for them gain any benefit otherwise they would find something more interesting to do, cribbing in particular is not exactly fulfilling or interesting, a bad cribber will stand doing it for hours when it would be better off eating but at some point it has probably been restricted and learned how to ease the discomfort.
Not all cribbers have ulcers but I expect the majority have had them at some point in their life.
 
There have been several studies to show that stereotypies like weaving and cribbing are only shown by horses with a genetic predisposition to have that reaction to a stressful situation. Horses don't learn to copy - unless they are genetically predisposed and are under the same level of stress.

http://www.yourhorse.co.uk/advice/horse-behaviour/articles/2016/4/19/equine-stereotypies-explained

http://research.vet.upenn.edu/Portals/49/93equineU.pdf

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:530082/FULLTEXT01.pdf
 
I do have a cribber and as much as people want me to stop him cribbing. Put a collar on him as it destroys things ( which I agree it does) My horse is worse if he cant crib. So I do let him. I have had a lot of problem due to him cribbing. And even though people still think horses copy apparently certai vices are easier to pick up then others. Weaving it suppose to be an easy one for horses to pick up. My horse was once stabled with a young 5 year old, a 4 year old and 2 10 year olds, one being a tb. My horse cribbed in the stable and field in plain sight of others. He was at the yard a year. Not one copied.
 
My horse cribs and windsucks and nothing on the yard has started copying him. He used to do it in the field as well but hasn't since the Spring which is fantastic, so don't be put off by a wind sucker/cribber. Some of them do stop.
 
The Dizz weaved like a demented whirligig, usually when she saw me and thought I should be doing something with her, but nothing else on the yard ever followed suit (probably all thought it looked too much like hard work!).
 
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