Cribbing is in Freedom’s DNA. He is not as bad as some cribbers: he can stand on a trailer for hours without cribbing, but without a collar, he will crib consistently. In fact the days before I ordered the Dare cribbing collar, he walked over to the fencepost near the gate and cribbed while I carried his hay over. He had one eye on me, aware that I don’t like him to crib, but he simply can’t resist.
I’ve tried a number of preventative measures without success. The Miracle collar did not work miracles; he destroyed the grazing muzzle in minutes (two of them); we put in special cribbing post to distract him from the fencing (he didn’t bite); and when I painted the fence with a product guaranteed to taste so terrible that your horse would never crib again, it didn’t slow him down, but just being downwind from the liquid as I painted, left a bad taste in my mouth for days. When Freedom’s most recent collar stretched to the point where it no longer was tight enough to prevent cribbing, I bought a Dare cribbing collar.
The cribbing collar designed by Rusty Dare, uses a patented, 3-dimensional throat piece design to prevent cribbing and a single, 1 3/4″ wide strap. Key to me were two things: the durability of the leather (previous cribbing straps stretched too much to be effective) and that it can be adjusted on both sides. I’ve had to punch holes in other collars and I liked the ability to adjust the tightness with more precision.
When the collar first arrived the leather was quite stiff and it was hard to get it tight enough. The collar became more flexible pretty quickly.
Although the collar is promoted as being one that can be fastened more loosely. That didn’t work; Freedom started cribbing right away. The good news is that making the collar tighter worked much better. He immediately stopped cribbing, at least when I’m around. One of the concerns about preventing a horse from cribbing is that their anxiety will manifest in other behaviors. I haven’t seen him acting out in any other ways. He will weave when I take Zelda away, but that’s not new.
I know that Freedom will never stop cribbing. For him it’s a soothing mechanism; he cribs more when he is anxious. However, cribbing is also destructive. It’s one of the reasons why so many barn owners don’t want cribbers as boarders — it loosens fence posts and pulls down poles. But if I can minimize the cribbing and keep him and the fencing safe, I think it’s a win-win.
Have you every been able to reduce or prevent your horse from cribbing? What has worked for you?
I’m sorry to say this, but cribbing is one of the few vices that I will never accept. I know that there’s something biochemical going on, or at least I believe what a horse is doing while it cribs is releasing a chemical in it’s brain that is like cocaine. My brain is refusing to remember the name of it, but it’s irresistable. I think I remember someone trying to inject some hormone to make a horse quit cribbing…obviously it didn’t work.
I never wanted a cribber. However, Freedom came into my life as a foster and he wormed his way into my heart. He’s a good boy and can’t help the cribbing. Interestingly, none of the horses he’s been turned out with ever picked up the habit, so I’m pretty convinced that horses that crib have a genetic predisposition.
I saw that with Raven. The horse across from his stall was a cribber. Raven never picked it up, thank the stars. I had always heard that cribbers were ‘contagious’ but I doubt that, now. I think you are right, there’s something genetic going on, although the above mentioned horse was pure QH. You have to wonder what is it that initiates the first ‘crib’? I wonder if anyone has done a study on cribbers. Is it transmissible from mare to foal? I haven’t known too many cribbers but every one was a gelding.
Come to think of it, every cribber I’ve known has been a gelding, too. However, I’ve never heard of there being a gender distinction. I think that in certain breeds, like TBs and maybe quarterhorses, they are bred for certain characteristics such as speed, and other behaviors are overlooked.
That is very true. Perhaps things have changed since I was a teen (you think???) and worked as a hot walker at the local TB track. Back then, the horses had the most dreadfully bad ground manners. I was bitten, kicked at, and pushed by the colts. All the owners/trainers were interested in was speed.