In using the horse for sporting and recreationnal purposes, people have totally altered its lifestyle and restricted its environment to the inside of a stable or, at best, the limited boundaries of a grazing paddock.
Instead of a wide range of naturally growing herbage, the horse is offered pasture grass with a limited number of plants and herbs, conserved forage, and concentrated foods which are much higher in energy and lower in fibre, than nature intended it to eat. People have reduced the amount of time it can spend eating to times when food is made available; and finally, people have limited the exercise it can take by shutting it in a stable for prolonged period of times.
No wonder the overall level of stress felt by horses kept under this routine increases. If a horse is deprived of the stimuli which produce natural behaviour, it is then not surprising if it attempts to replace them with the closest available alternative and indulges in what we call „stable vices". Thus, windsucking fills and empties the anterior oesophagus with air, and weawing of box-walking may be substitutes for the continual onward movement of the horse at liberty, while crib-biting may represent the natural urge to graze continuously.
Crib-biting and windsucking
Symptoms
In crib-biting, the horse grasps a fixed object such as the edge of a manger of fence post with its teeth, arches its neck, forcing open the soft palate, and gulps air, usually with a characteristic grunt. In time, the incisor teeth become excessively worn and may cause the horse difficulty in grazing.
The windsucking horse achieves the same effect of gulping air, but without needing to grasp an object.
Cribbing and windsucking horses swallowed air causing indigestion and flatulence, which increase the risk of colic and digestive disturbances.
Treatment
-collars are available which when fittes round the gullet cause pressure as the horse arches its neck and tries to swallow,
-attempts can be made to deprive the horse of any convenient edge to graspby adding split tubes to the top of stable doors or any edges,
-in extreme cases, surgery may be employed.
Weawing
Symptoms
The horse stands, usually with its head over the stable door, shifting its weight rhythmically from one front foot to the other, and swaying the head and neck from side to side as if mesmerised. It is a sign of frustration of being confined.
Treatment
- a grille over the door may prevent a horse from starting to weave,
- toys hung in the stable may also serve as a distraction,
- the real solution is to turn the horse outside, removing the source of stress and enabling it to relax.
Box-walking
Cause
It is related to weavin in that it has a similar cause: confinement. . It is also associated with the anticipation of competition in fit, highly conditioned horses, especially those of a more highly strung or sensitive disposition which may box-walk intermittently, for example during the night before an event, in a strange stable. An uncongenial horse next door, or in the case of mares, having a stallion close by, might also induce box-walking.
The horse is a social animal, and being confined in a stable where it cannot touch other horses, even if it can see them, may also contribute to weaving and box-walking.
Symptoms
They include loss of condition due to a combination of nervous tension, inappetance or fluctuating appetite; the horses may also be depressed and dull, or alternatively highly strung, inattentive and difficult to handle. Stallions in particular may be frustrated by an abnormal lifestyle and become increasingly unmanageable or even aggressive.
Treatment
For stabbled horses, the remedy employed such as the windsucker´s collar or the anti-weaving grille, may often take the form of further misunderstanding. They are only physical attempts to stop activities which are in themselves a displacement to relieve mental anxiety and they have no curative effect. The question should be asked whether keeping a horse continually in such a state is any more defensible than to neglect a physical injury or illness.
Depraved appetite
Cause
It is another way in which a horse may react to un unnatural lifestyle. Bedding may be eaten both because of boredom, or because fibre is lacking in the diet or is less palatable than the fibre in the bedding.
Symptoms
The horse eats his bedding or his own droppings, chewing the wood of his box, or eating other substances such as earth, or licking metal.
Young foals will eat their mothers fresh droppings and this is a natural course of behaviour for them and the reason is probably to do with the establishment of the correct balance of microflora in the foal´s gut. However, it is unnatural for older horses to eat droppings, a phenomenon usually found to occur when a horse undergoes a sudden change of diet, or when fibre is lacking in the diet.
Remedy
Remove droppings as soon as possible and provide the horse with extra fibre.
Wood-chewing
Cause
In the stable, wood-chewing may be attributable to lack of fibre, although boredom or lack of companionship may also be contributory factors.
Symptoms
It may cause colic.
Remedy
It is advisable to see that the horse has sufficient digestible fibre available to prevent this.
Earth-eating
Cause
Eating earth or other substances usually indicates a mineral or salt deficiency and the diet should be checked. If there is no deficiency, the cause may be boredom.
Remedy
- more exercise and the increased provision of clean forage is indicated,
- where the variety of plants in the horse´s pasture or turnout area is limited, or for stabled horses, herbal supplements are often well received and improve appetite and condition.
