[emmy14]

Wood chewing and wind sucking is due to a lack of copper and magnesium in the horse's diet. The horse will usually strip the bark off trees and chew the wood, suck on metal poles and lick them because they are trying to find the nutrients. My horse did this. I found this information in natural horse care by Pat Coleby.

To fix this problem put half a teaspoon of copper sulphate and one tablespoon of dolomite (magnesium) in the horse's feed. It stopped my horse chewing in 4 hrs.

[hossluva]

wow thats real helpful thanks! yeah i think i cought my horse cribbing yesterday and was wondering if i needed to by one of those collars but now i just need to go by that give it to them the first time do u continue to put it on there feed?

[hossluva]

wow thats real helpful thanks! yeah i think i cought my horse cribbing yesterday and was wondering if i needed to by one of those collars but now i just need to go by that stuff. so after u give it to them the first time do u continue to put it on there feed?

[hossluva]

sry about that my comp. went stupid?

[Blistering Winds]

emmy. They have found that not to be true in all woodchewers and suckers. In a few, this is true. But many do this out of boredom. I have had my horse tested, and he isn't lacking in anything, and he will chew the wood when the horse next to him chews. He's just a copycat.

But some chewers, yes, are lacking in stuff. Especially the outside pasture horses who seek out the trees. But as far as teh "norm" of stalled horses, it is 99% boredom.

[hossluva]

blistering winds- my horse is out side every day and in at night she doesnt chew in her stall its only out side on the fences and stuff the other horse dont do it she has grass and pasture mates and its a good sized lot so do u think she is lacking somthing cause i highly doubt she is bored?

[Lou3]

Vices are actually caused more by chronic stress than boredom. boredom can be part of this but usually it is something else about their environment that is contributing. Removing the stressful stimuli will reduce stress levels but rarely results in them ceasing to display the vice.
Lou

[MissBandit]

Lou has it bang on. Horses do not feel boredom like we expect they do. They are not hard wired to become "bored". When they are locked up they are feeling stressed at being confined, or are stressed at lack of physical companionship of their own kind. That doesn't mean being able to see each other over a fence, or accross the stable isle. They are stressing over missing the physical closeness w/o being seperated by fence.

[Idrivetrotters]

Cribbing becomes an obsessive compulsive behavior. A horse even in pasture will still crib as we have all seen. Horses do pick up habits from other horses good or bad, so a cribber needs to be delt with immediately. A strap doesn't always work and I'm sure the supplements do work for a few, but once the behavior becomes ingrained, it is very difficult to stop ask any human with an OCD. Even the miracle collar has its faults as my cribber found out within 5 mins of having it properly put on. Just crib on the bottom rail on the fence, no problem! Feed/drink through muzzles are the only ones I've found that work for pasatured horses and the miracle collar does do well for stabled horses.

[MissBandit]

Yes a pastured horse will still crib once he's gotten hooked on it. But a pastured horse with horse buddies will not suddenly pickup cribbing. Those vices usually appear while being segregated - once they are addicted, good luck trying to break the habbit.