What do you feed your windsucker/cribbers? Has it helped?

leflynn

leflynn

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Hi,

My boy (15.2 TB ex racer, 5yo) was a chronic windsucker when I bought him last Sept, he has improved a little by altering routines and minor tweeks to his feed. I;m just wondering what you feed and if it's helped at all as there are so many opinions/products to try! He is currently on Alfalfa, blue chip and outshine/oil if needed plus either grazing or hayledge. Moving to the alfalfa from some cereals seems to have improved it a little again, but I'm just wondering what your experiences are? :)
 
My girl (another 5 yo ex racer) is/was a mild windsucker. I feed her readymash, micronised linseed, nuts, alfa a oil and lo cal. The main thing I do is just make sure she has access to plenty of grass/haylage.
 
May be worth trying an antacid? Something like Gastric Settler can help buffer the acid and slow down the passage of food, and so can help cribbers... worth a try :D
 
You know mine.....4 year old ex racer windsucks while cribbing.

Summer - Chaff, High fibre nuts and Baileys Number 4

Winter- same Just more of and sugar beet.

High Fibre diet basically and 24/7 turnout all year round.
 
KatB said:
May be worth trying an antacid? Something like Gastric Settler can help buffer the acid and slow down the passage of food, and so can help cribbers... worth a try :D
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You must be reading my mind ;) Thats what i'm pondering, but there's a fair few of them out there....
 
Yeh I think what you feed can help massively.
My TB is now 13. When I bought him just off the track as a 6yr old he cribbed horrendously. His diet was changed immediately to no cereals and high fibre and this has helped alot.
However, in my opinion, once a cribber, always a cribber! If my horse is in a situation where this is a nice fence post available he will find it! He does it much less than he used to - ie it used to be one mouth of hay, then one crib, hay, crib, etc. It is now much much less but he will still take advantage of available surfaces!
I do not use a collar and do not believe in them but I do electrify the top of the fencing and he does have something over his door to prevent him, purely because I do think it affects his condition somewhat nowadays -he bloats up and can a little gassy colic when hes on a mission.
When he knows there isn't an available surface he doesnt look for one, its almost like he knows theres not and just doesnt bother looking!
I haven't used antacids but its something I would try if I couldnt do the above.
 
My exracer 9yo mare started cribbing after I got her - the vet felt it was a stress relief thing for her caused by the move and as she had been moved around a lot before I got her. She is on small amount of speedibeet and high fibre cubes + feed balancer + hay (winter) and smaller amount of the above + grass (summer). I electrify as much fencing as I can but there is always something she can find to crib on. She's not stressed now - I think she just enjoys cribbing - endorphin highs. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
PS she is never short of hay / grass
 
doris2008 said:
Yeh I think what you feed can help massively.
My TB is now 13. When I bought him just off the track as a 6yr old he cribbed horrendously. His diet was changed immediately to no cereals and high fibre and this has helped alot.
However, in my opinion, once a cribber, always a cribber! If my horse is in a situation where this is a nice fence post available he will find it! He does it much less than he used to - ie it used to be one mouth of hay, then one crib, hay, crib, etc. It is now much much less but he will still take advantage of available surfaces!
I do not use a collar and do not believe in them but I do electrify the top of the fencing and he does have something over his door to prevent him, purely because I do think it affects his condition somewhat nowadays -he bloats up and can a little gassy colic when hes on a mission.
When he knows there isn't an available surface he doesnt look for one, its almost like he knows theres not and just doesnt bother looking!
I haven't used antacids but its something I would try if I couldnt do the above.
Click to expand...

I agree with you that once a cribber always a cribber and had to resort to a miracle collar on mine in the end. I did try a lot of other things first as do realise you are merely stopping a symptom not addressing the cause with a collar. However, having seen another 2 horse's (same breeding btw) end up with colic I did put one on but bought sheepskin covers so it wouldn't rub. He ended up living out which helped enormously but I tried everything. Having access to forage constantly was the only thing that made him cut the behaviour right back though..
 
Agree with once a cribber always a cribber.... Anyway bit of update really, the change to alpha a has worked a treat, he's also on box rest which seems to have helped (vet agrees he's an inside horse) so he's eating more forage in the form of haylage now (whichI think is helping too).

He's also on a 1/4 dose of gastroguard as an experiement cunningly under the guise of easing the cribbing due to box rest on a vet claim and that too has helped, he's also on something called ekyguard as a freebie experiement from the vet (lol!). I'm not convinced about the ekyguard - strange french stuff that contains a lot of liquorice.

It had improved to the point where the yard is silent for without a noise from him - it was until I put a stable mirror up (coming down tonight after a week) *oops*

Once the gastroguard has finished I'm going to stick him high fibre cubes as well as alpha a - any recommendations as they all look similar just some seem to fess up to having more startch/cereal in than others and I'd prefer the lowest of the low for that!
 
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