Question

I have an eight-year-old Quarter Horse gelding that I barrel race. He’s the perfect horse except for one habit: he cribs. In addition to his concentrate and free-choice hay, he’s fed a vitamin E and selenium supplement. He’s kept in an electric-fence field with no trees or wood, so he now cribs primarily on the plastic water trough. I’d rather not use a cribbing strap. From a nutritional angle, what can I do to stop the cribbing?

Answer

Believe it or not, the motivation to crib is as important to some horses as the impetus to eat. In one study, researchers concluded that cribbers worked as hard or harder to engage in the stereotypy as they did to eat.^*

Identifying a way to control cribbing beyond the use of a collar is a worthy pursuit, as the stereotypy has been linked to colic, including small intestinal and colonic obstruction, as well as pain associated with arthritis of the temporohyoid joint, an assemblage of small bones that supports the throat. Further, horses precluded from cribbing through the use of a collar or surgery have higher stress levels than horses allowed to crib.⁺

Aside from offering free-choice forage, which you already do, a few nutritional management recommendations come to mind: feed a low-starch feed; feed multiple small concentrate meals per day instead of one or two large meals; and slow the intake of concentrate feed (spreading concentrate over a large surface area; using large, smooth stones in the feed tub to curb rapid eating).

Digestive buffers can be added to the feed to help reduce gastric and hindgut acidity, which may be a contributing factor.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that some horses may reduce the time spent involved in certain stereotypies once gastric ulceration or hindgut acidosis has been rectified.

Cribbing is considered by some researchers to be a coping mechanism for stress. Environmental enrichment involving mental and physical activities, such as different forage stations, toys, and companionship, can help reduce stress and improve animal welfare, as might regular exercise.

Despite the best management practices, some horses engage in the behavior for significant amounts of time; it is not unusual for horses to crib hundreds of times each day, eventually resulting in worn incisors, overdevelopment of neck muscles, higher risk for health issues, and destruction to barns and fences.^*

^*Houpt, K.A. 2012. Motivation for cribbing by horses. Animal Welfare 21:1-7.

⁺Nagy, K., G. Bodo, G. Bardos, A. Harnos, and P. Kabai. 2009. The effect of a feeding stress-test on the behavior and heart rate variability of control and crib-biting horse (with or without inhibition). Applied Animal Behavior Science 121:140-147.