Gizzmoe
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I fiigured I would just past the article as I could not get a link to the direct article for some reason. Anyways this may prove useful to those of you who have horses that crib.
Can Dietary Changes Prevent Cribbing?
Cribbing horses damage themselves, too, by wearing down their teeth and overdeveloping their neck muscles.
Cribbing is an abnormal behavior that affects about 300,000 horses in this country, including about 2.5 percent of all Thoroughbreds. A cribbing horse will grip a stall door, partition, fence post, bucket rim, or other object with its incisors then arch its neck and pull back. In doing so, the horse typically tenses up the muscles in its neck and face, retracts its voice box, and gulps down air into the esophagus.
"Little of the air is swallowed, and few horses actually develop colic, but owners dislike cribbing because of the damage it causes to fences and buckets when the horse pulls them," says Katherine A. Houpt, VMD, PhD, Dipl ACVB, director of the college's Animal Behavior Clinic. Cribbing should be distinguished from wood chewing in which wood is actually consumed and fence rails and barn walls must be replaced. Nevertheless, cribbing can wear down the horse's teeth, overdevelop its neck muscles, and in some cases be associated with weight loss.
Proposed causes of cribbing range from boredom and an equine version of obsessive-compulsive disorder (such as constant hand washing in humans) to the presence of ulcers, a genetic predisposition to chronic stress, a desire to nibble, and diet.
"We believe that cribbing may be caused by the perception of a sweet taste of concentrate rations, which leads to the release of opiates, which in turn leads to cribbing," says Houpt.
Cribbing does not seem to stimulate endorphin release, however, and the cribbing horse is actually more sensitive rather than less sensitive to pain. Thus, the release of opiates may cause cribbing, but cribbing does not cause a high.
"Another possible cause of cribbing is a horse's response to pain from acidic conditions in its stomach and/or large intestine caused by high-concentrate diets. The pain from the high acid levels also could result in opiate release, which could lead to cribbing," she explains.
With a new grant from the Harry M. Zweig Memorial Fund, Houpt hopes to find a dietary treatment for cribbing that can easily be administered by horse owners and managers but still be a high-performance diet. She plans to test three experimental diets in different orders in six horses. Each diet will be administered for three weeks and then gradually tapered during the subsequent three-week period while the horse gradually adapts to the next diet. Then, the second diet will be given for a full three weeks before the next diet is slowly introduced. Using time-lapse video recordings of the horses, Houpt will be able to assess the effectiveness of each diet by measuring how much time the horses crib each day.
The baseline diet is Respond. The first experimental diet is Respond with Sweetness Reducing Factor (SRF). This diet blocks the sweet flavor of the grain and molasses mixture that is typically part of a high-performance equine test. The second experimental diet is a high fat diet in which half the carbohydrate calories are replaced with corn oil.
"This diet allows a horse to still perform at a high level but does not have as much sweet feed," Houpt explains.
The third experimental diet is a concentrate diet with a nontherapeutic antibiotic virginiamycin added. Virginiamycin inhibits the acid-producing bacteria in a horse's large intestine.
Current management practices for horses that crib include muzzles, neck straps, and spiked and shock collars to prevent the horse from arching its neck or from reaching a surface to grasp with its teeth. These, however, can cause tissue damage and pain. Mechanical methods also may stress the horse and don't change its motivation to crib.
"It would be much more beneficial to horses for researchers to determine why a horse cribs and to remove the stimulus rather than punish the horse," Houpt says.
In the meantime, cribbing may be controlled by keeping the horse on pasture with compatible companions as much as possible. Providing a padded bar on which the horse can crib will reduce wear on its teeth and should direct his behavior away from buckets and fence rails. Another strategy is to give the horse a stall toy that it can roll over to obtain a small quantity of feed.
Although certain medications can block opiates, they are too expensive to be practical. Surgical techniques, which have been used in the past, may have serious side effects and are ineffective over the long term; thus, they are no longer recommended.
Can Dietary Changes Prevent Cribbing?
Cribbing horses damage themselves, too, by wearing down their teeth and overdeveloping their neck muscles.
Cribbing is an abnormal behavior that affects about 300,000 horses in this country, including about 2.5 percent of all Thoroughbreds. A cribbing horse will grip a stall door, partition, fence post, bucket rim, or other object with its incisors then arch its neck and pull back. In doing so, the horse typically tenses up the muscles in its neck and face, retracts its voice box, and gulps down air into the esophagus.
"Little of the air is swallowed, and few horses actually develop colic, but owners dislike cribbing because of the damage it causes to fences and buckets when the horse pulls them," says Katherine A. Houpt, VMD, PhD, Dipl ACVB, director of the college's Animal Behavior Clinic. Cribbing should be distinguished from wood chewing in which wood is actually consumed and fence rails and barn walls must be replaced. Nevertheless, cribbing can wear down the horse's teeth, overdevelop its neck muscles, and in some cases be associated with weight loss.
Proposed causes of cribbing range from boredom and an equine version of obsessive-compulsive disorder (such as constant hand washing in humans) to the presence of ulcers, a genetic predisposition to chronic stress, a desire to nibble, and diet.
"We believe that cribbing may be caused by the perception of a sweet taste of concentrate rations, which leads to the release of opiates, which in turn leads to cribbing," says Houpt.
Cribbing does not seem to stimulate endorphin release, however, and the cribbing horse is actually more sensitive rather than less sensitive to pain. Thus, the release of opiates may cause cribbing, but cribbing does not cause a high.
"Another possible cause of cribbing is a horse's response to pain from acidic conditions in its stomach and/or large intestine caused by high-concentrate diets. The pain from the high acid levels also could result in opiate release, which could lead to cribbing," she explains.
With a new grant from the Harry M. Zweig Memorial Fund, Houpt hopes to find a dietary treatment for cribbing that can easily be administered by horse owners and managers but still be a high-performance diet. She plans to test three experimental diets in different orders in six horses. Each diet will be administered for three weeks and then gradually tapered during the subsequent three-week period while the horse gradually adapts to the next diet. Then, the second diet will be given for a full three weeks before the next diet is slowly introduced. Using time-lapse video recordings of the horses, Houpt will be able to assess the effectiveness of each diet by measuring how much time the horses crib each day.
The baseline diet is Respond. The first experimental diet is Respond with Sweetness Reducing Factor (SRF). This diet blocks the sweet flavor of the grain and molasses mixture that is typically part of a high-performance equine test. The second experimental diet is a high fat diet in which half the carbohydrate calories are replaced with corn oil.
"This diet allows a horse to still perform at a high level but does not have as much sweet feed," Houpt explains.
The third experimental diet is a concentrate diet with a nontherapeutic antibiotic virginiamycin added. Virginiamycin inhibits the acid-producing bacteria in a horse's large intestine.
Current management practices for horses that crib include muzzles, neck straps, and spiked and shock collars to prevent the horse from arching its neck or from reaching a surface to grasp with its teeth. These, however, can cause tissue damage and pain. Mechanical methods also may stress the horse and don't change its motivation to crib.
"It would be much more beneficial to horses for researchers to determine why a horse cribs and to remove the stimulus rather than punish the horse," Houpt says.
In the meantime, cribbing may be controlled by keeping the horse on pasture with compatible companions as much as possible. Providing a padded bar on which the horse can crib will reduce wear on its teeth and should direct his behavior away from buckets and fence rails. Another strategy is to give the horse a stall toy that it can roll over to obtain a small quantity of feed.
Although certain medications can block opiates, they are too expensive to be practical. Surgical techniques, which have been used in the past, may have serious side effects and are ineffective over the long term; thus, they are no longer recommended.
