Those with windsuckers/ crib biters

ktj1891

ktj1891

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What do you find works to best alleviate these vices.
I know turnout is best but where that is not possible what do you do?

I am getting a stall chain put up for him tonight so during the day he can have his door open and hopefully not windsuck on it and I have also just ordered a stable mirror.

He has ad lib hay/haylage and gets a good diet and also, is turned out for as long as possible when weather allows. Unfortunately, he has been unable to go out at all this winter.
 
Electric out in the field with a random post in the middle of the field for his "cribbing station" and an anti weave grill on his stable door - works brilliantly! All the crib stop lotions and potions don't work for him!
 
Irishbabygirl said:
Electric out in the field with a random post in the middle of the field for his "cribbing station" and an anti weave grill on his stable door - works brilliantly! All the crib stop lotions and potions don't work for him!
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Does an anti-weave grill really work?
 
My pony has been a cribber for 15 years now and nothing stops him! He does it on the door frame if he has his door open. I've got an anti weave grill on his door and floor to ceiling kick boards in his stable. The only edge he has access to is the bottom of the V of the grill, which he cribs on. Out in the field he does it on my post and rail fencing but favours a rail which I have sacrificed and just leave him to it.

He has been scoped and doesn't have ulcers, before anyone gets on that band waggon. He went out on loan whilst I did my GCSE's and copied a horse on that yard. Needless to say we were furious!
 
I don't let mine windsuck if I can help it - since he started two years ago (for no apparent reason, he has been scoped and there were no ulcers), he's had three bouts of colic. Before he windsucked, he never had colic and that was over a period of 11 years. He's not a stressy horse and there were no horses on the yard that did it, so we don't know where he got it from.

So, he wears a collar out in the field (as he sucks on the fencing and breaks it meaning a cross YO!), and he wears a collar at night. If he is in the stable and has food, he is less likely to windsuck on the door - so he has hay in the afternoon, then a haynet at teatime until I get to the yard in the evening, then he gets a top of of hay before I leave, around 7.30pm and his collar then goes on. So he does get a break from wearing it for a few hours a day.

He is a very very good doer, so its a real balancing act between giving him enough hay to keep him going, and not so much he gets to be a porker!

Collars aren't eveyone's cup of tea, but I would rather he wear it than get another bout of colic - I know some people don't think it is connected, but I don't want to take the chance - he's 23 and a serious colic could be the end of him.
 
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Hexx said:
I don't let mine windsuck if I can help it - since he started two years ago (for no apparent reason, he has been scoped and there were no ulcers), he's had three bouts of colic. Before he windsucked, he never had colic and that was over a period of 11 years. He's not a stressy horse and there were no horses on the yard that did it, so we don't know where he got it from.

So, he wears a collar out in the field (as he sucks on the fencing and breaks it meaning a cross YO!), and he wears a collar at night. If he is in the stable and has food, he is less likely to windsuck on the door - so he has hay in the afternoon, then a haynet at teatime until I get to the yard in the evening, then he gets a top of of hay before I leave, around 7.30pm.

He is a very very good doer, so its a real balancing act between giving him enough hay to keep him going, and not so much he gets to be a porker!

Collars aren't eveyone's cup of tea, but I would rather he wear it than get another bout of colic - I know some people don't think it is connected, but I don't want to take the chance - he's 23 and a serious colic could be the end of him.
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Most of those of us who have/had international cribbers would argue that the 2 are very definitely connected. The research done on this is seriously lacking and it drives me mad when people say 'cribbing doesn't lead to colic'. I hate collars but keep horses at home so don't have to pander to anyone else.
 
It is telling that he never had colic for 11 years, then when he started windsucking, he's had three lots.

He's been at the same yard for 9 years - same box, same routine. the windsucking is the only variable.
 
I put off using a collar on ours for a couple of years & left him to it, but we finally gave it a try last year & havnt looked back. We now have a 100% happier horse, the difference in him is amazing, he used to spend his life sucking on a post & not interacting with the other horses, within a month of wearing the collar he was playing with the others & generally a far happier animal for it. I appreciate they arent for everyone, but it certainly worked for us.
 
My old boy (also 23) does it constantly. He cribs after hay, feed and just generally after a bit of grazing in the field. He has had colic once (touchwood) but that was after a long journey. I tried a "miracle collar" when they first came out but it just made him rear constantly and he hated it.
I also keep mine at home and although it drives my husband nuts when TJ is "eating the fence" (as husband put its it) I just let him get on with it. I am not going to be able to stop him after 15 years!
 
What works for Red is no collar (he only ended up being more stressed/chewed wood/box walked into a frenzy)
A fibre based diet, with ad llib forage and no treats or carrots
Routine
Being stabled - he cribs less being stabled than turned out oddly enough. I've had 2 vets notice it and say that he is an inside horse, he still does like being out just not in nasty weather (wuss)
Patience and calm
A place to crib when needed

Preventing him crib/windsuck makes him worse, I've done gatroguard trials and he doesn't at present have ulcers, he does put on weight nicely but isn't quite a good do-er sadly! I have rubber cover tops on his stable doors to protect his teeth a little bit (as underneath they are metal), I also tried a stabel mirror and he wasn't impressed, we think he might have thought the other horse was going to crib on his door!
 
Strange how they affect some horses differently, ours wasnt bothered at all by having it on, but it did take about 2 weeks before it actually stopped him. We were going to take it off after the first week but someone advised us to persevere with it & it did work in the end.
 
Removing all cereals and molasses from my horse's diet stopped him from windsucking and cribbing. He had been doing it constantly since he was a 5 year old and now, at 28, has not done it for years. I think that, for him, it was very much food related but I do have to be very careful. A few years ago, I fed him a supplement containing wheatfeed and he starting windsucking again almost immediately. As soon as I removed the supplement, he stopped.
 
leflynn said:
Preventing him crib/windsuck makes him worse, I've done gatroguard trials and he doesn't at present have ulcers, he does put on weight nicely but isn't quite a good do-er sadly! I have rubber cover tops on his stable doors to protect his teeth a little bit (as underneath they are metal), I also tried a stabel mirror and he wasn't impressed, we think he might have thought the other horse was going to crib on his door!
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I also found that trying to stop my old horse from cribbing made him worse. I HATE collars so when I moved yards, I told the YO, that there was no way i would put a collar on him. I ended up putting him on pink powder (purely to help digestion) and found he actually got better when on this.
 
I don't try and stop mine. At his old home they put cribbox on his door which worked as long as it was redone daily. My stable has wooden kick boards though so I know full well if I prevent him on the door he will eat the kick boards.
He too has electric tape everywhere important with strategic posts but actually he only really sucks on the metal gates.
I turn out as much as possible but not all the time, when he wants to come in he waits at the gate asking.
It's just his thing. I'd try and prevent it more maybe if he was hard to keep weight on or suffered colic but it seems not to cause him trouble.
 
poiuytrewq said:
I don't try and stop mine. At his old home they put cribbox on his door which worked as long as it was redone daily. My stable has wooden kick boards though so I know full well if I prevent him on the door he will eat the kick boards.
He too has electric tape everywhere important with strategic posts but actually he only really sucks on the metal gates.
I turn out as much as possible but not all the time, when he wants to come in he waits at the gate asking.
It's just his thing. I'd try and prevent it more maybe if he was hard to keep weight on or suffered colic but it seems not to cause him trouble.
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Red is so determined that he will pull faces and lick cribbox or similar off the surface until he can crib!
 
leave mine to get on with it. Have a wooden bar across the door at the preferred hight so she uses that rather than the door, a reinforced corner manger at the back so she has that when she eats and a sacrificial post - although this year I will probably try and make a "crib station" for her
 
Wings doesn't do it massively, just after a hard feed or treats. The field he was in had electric fencing running over the top of the fence posts, so the only place he could do it was at the gate, however other than for 2 minutes after turn out, no one ever saw him standing at the gate cribbing. In the stable we just chucked a couple of rugs of the wall that were old and broken, so if he did crib he didn't hurt his teeth.

Basically, we didn't do much to stop him, as he isn't an excessive cribber, and we just made sure he has adlib haylage whenever stabled, and tried to turn him out as long as possible, including 24/7 in summer. Not once in the 4 and a bit years I've had him has he ever had colic or any other problem (e.g massive weightloss) due to his cribbing :)
 
scarymare said:
Most of those of us who have/had international cribbers would argue that the 2 are very definitely connected. The research done on this is seriously lacking and it drives me mad when people say 'cribbing doesn't lead to colic'.
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Cribbing and colic definitely appear to be connected. However, what is the evidence that cribbing leads to colic? It seems to me to be just as likely, if not more so, that both cribbing and colicking are due to some underlying disorder, the most likely culprit being excess GI acidity. If that is true, stopping cribbing wouldn't necessarily be expected to prevent colic and so there would be no advantage to doing this. Indeed, it can be argued that cribbing (at least initially) represents an attempt by the horse to counteract the acidity, so that stopping it might actually be harmful. You may already have considered and rejected this possibility - if so I would be interested to hear your reasoning.
 
Am I the only one with a cribber that hasn't had colic then *touch wood*? My mare doesn't crib in the field or when tied, only when she is in her stable, even with a full hay net as she gets bored or is looking forward to something, she likes seeing what is going on and my yard is pretty quiet. I don't try and stop her, the YO just put her in the stable that had a cribber in it before so there is a convenient dent in the door for when she feels the need to crib.
 
I bought my boy as a 5 year old that wind sucked a year ago. He doesn't crib in the stereotypical way either. At first he did, biting down on his door, but putting a metal sheet over the top of the door means he now brings his head over and round the door, pushes back on his chin and then sucks in.
I know people have gripes about collars but I used one on him and have never looked back. I also make sure he's got plenty of hay and use a hay net with small holes so it slows him down eating it, keeps him occupied. He's a much happier pony and is at a much healthier weight. I've even been able to ween him off of his collar and I can leave him all day without one on. The only time he cribs now is when I'm around and he hasn't got hay and it seems to be to get my attention, especially if I'm eating something. I have noticed it is also more prevalent in winter than summer. Probably due to restricted turn out in winter.
He, too, has never suffered with colic whilst being with me. *touch wood*
 
I have a cribbing mare, and she definitely cribs most when she is in pain. She got a skin infection in her leg and did it lots then, even in the field where she doesn't normally. So yes, I'd be inclined to agree at least some, if not most cribbing is connected to the horse already being in pain (or stress). If she crib bites alot I first look for something wrong with her (being cold has also caused her to crib). She did have stomach ache once, I am sure, she was still eating ok, but cribbing over and over again. I waited up with her, and she eventually calmed down. The haylage bale was really wet and the others also seemed unsettled, so I think it was that that time.

For her I have tried a collar, but (and this might sound a bit fluffy) it really stressed me to see her in it as I thought it looked so uncomfortable, so I shoved it on and avoided her. She could just about crib with it on and this made me very cross as it upset me to see so much. Although I didn't punish her, she knew something was wrong and got stressed and it spiralled into her cribbing a lot. I took the collar off, made a concious effort to not be annoyed by her and gave her lots of calm praise and hugs, cribboxed her door, and so far she has stopped cribbing except for occasionally, which I don't mind. I know what she is up to as I can hear her from my bedroom. So when she does it badly, drives me mad. Fingers crossed the new hug-before-bed regime will continue to work!
 
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