Cribber from Hell -- How to Keep Him from Flooding His Stall?

[Abbie.S]

@danacat

I have a dedicated cribber who lives outside mostly 24/7 – but when he’s in his stall he stands behind a webbing and crossbar (racetrack style) and LOVES to crib on his crossbar. Something about the movement, height and feel of it he really likes. I’m in the 'If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em club’ when it comes to cribbers. Provide an enjoyable thing for them to crib on and it will be their go-to object.

You can reform even the most dedicated cribbers. But it honestly takes more patience, knowledge and willingness to help the horse in exactly the way he needs and most owners just simply aren’t willing to go that far or don’t understand the root cause.

Not picking on you specifically, danacat. Your post just reminded me how much of an uphill battle is it oftentimes to get folks to realize this is rarely a straight management issue - it’s a sign the horse is serious lost unto himself. It’s dissociative behavior, the horse’s attempt to get himself okay when he is anything but.

With your description of where he came from, OP, it sounds like this is a seriously unhappy horse who was treated poorly and still harbors a lot of internal stress. I applaud your efforts to get him as comfortable as possible - if you want to PM me, I have a suggestion for you as to how you can actually get at the root of the issue.

[Jungle_Monkey]

Not sure what ulcer meds they have him on but you might want to try the omeprazole/sulcralfate compound if he’s not on it so you can get his hind gut at the same time.

[Woodsperson]

My cribber never cribs on his auto waterer so he doesn’t have to have buckets, but at shows the water buckets were a problem. We hung the buckets on baling twine about 6 inches above the floor. He couldn’t get a good grip and it was low. It didn’t completely solve the problem, but it helped a lot.

Also I know someone that coated surfaces they didn’t want cribbed on with Irish Spring soap-redirecting the cribbing to other places. Didn’t work with my horse. He would crib on the soap then rinse his mouth in the water bucket.

[meaty_ogre]

Sympathies from a fellow cribber from hell (he has since passed on, God rest his soul, last year at the age of 24).

Metal angle iron may sound harsh, but my cribber actually had good teeth despite cribbing on metal. They only need to use enough pressure to create the air sucking, and he actually cribbed lighter on the metal than on wood. I would try putting some on the surface of his stall and see how it goes.

Consider trying Chaste Tree Berry. It is a dopamine agonist that works on the same (dopamine) pathway that is activated by the cribbing horse. This did reduce the cribbing desire for my horse. Your mileage may vary but it’s cheap. I got mine from herbalcom.com. I don’t know if they’re still in business because it’s been a few years, but I bought the whole berries and ground them in a coffee grinder. I think I used 2 tablespoons morning and night. I did 3 weeks on and one week off. Because it’s a dopamine agonist it’s good to cycle and then taper.

Ulcer treatment with Ulcergaurd made mine worse. Although I can’t prove it with certainty, I am convinced that the omeprazole caused delayed gastric emptying and resulted in IBD-like symptoms in the hindgut. I decided to use fenugreek instead (again, I used whole seeds from herbalcom, ground in a coffee grinder). Here’s a couple links to some abstracts. I can’t say for certain that it worked because I didn’t have him scoped again, but I was very satisfied by the improvement in his body condition and behavior. Very very cheap.
http://www.ivsajournals.com/article_4590_8.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874102001174

I found over the 16+ years that I owned him, the thing that affected his cribbing the most was herd dynamics. He was the alpha, but was really too nervous and anxious to carry that role well. He always did best with very docile horses who never challenged him. I always thought that maybe it was pain-related, but I had him through many episodes of injuries and stall rests, and it never affected the cribbing nearly as much as changes in herd dynamics.

Finally, I’m sure that you know the difference between cribbing and wood chewing, but his attacking the run-in like a beaver sounds like he may be a chewer and a cribber (God help you if so!). I would either start him on a high quality chelated mineral supplement, and possibly consider pulling blood to check his vitamin e and selenium levels. Stress depletes selenium, which can also affect iodine and other minerals in a chain reaction. Some nutritional tweaking might be in order especially if he’s already not looking up to par.

Good luck!

[DancingArabian]

Cribbing muzzle + water buckets

[candyappy]

Sounds like you have a plan but when I boarded my cribber the BO built a wooden guard at the same height around the waterer so he could crib on that and protect the waterer. It was cheap, simple and worked for us.

[Glyphica]

@theresak

For some horses, cribbing becomes a stereotypic behavior and there’s really nothing you can do to eliminate it. The endorphins it releases outweigh any other behaviors the horse can perform - including eating, playing, touching noses with buddies, etc.

Saying that, you don’t indicate what omeprazole the horse is being administered. This is one case were I’d consider shelling out the money for the full Merial Ulcergard/Gastrogard treatment for at least 2 weeks so you know the horse is getting the correct dose in a proven buffer. And I’d double check that the order and timing you are administering the different ulcer meds is the best regimen and they are not inhibiting each other. There are a few posters on this board that have had horses with ulcers that have a bacterial component and had to go to antibiotic treatments as well to clear them up, so scoping might be in your future.

He’s getting the standard Gastrogard (1 tube per day) treatment. I’ll talk with the vet on Monday about the timing of the drugs. Right now, we’re doing gastrogard AM, ratinidine paste PM, and the sucralfate with both grain meals. I’ll also ask about antibiotics. This horse was not scoped before treatment.

Also, do you think extra pre/pro biotics would be worth discussing?

[Glyphica]

@MCF1991

Do you have plans for follow up supplement after the ulcer treatment? Depending on the financials of the owner, I have seen Succeed do miracles on more than a few horses. I have heard the Smart Digest or whatever it is from Smartpak works well too, but haven’t tried it.

Vet recommends we put him on horsey malox after treatment (I’ve got it written down, but not on me, but I’m 99% sure it’s a KER product). Also to keep the OTC gastrogard on hand for stressful events and significant weather changes.

[Glyphica]

@halt

From what you have mentioned, it sounds to me like a possible trigger for this horse could be potential discomfort/unsoundness with his work, which as a BM, may not be something you can control. I really do think a good chunk of horses that crib, do so because they’re sore somewhere. To expand on that, I will also say that horses that I have seen scoped for ulcers, and have had bad ulcers (barring those that just came from major rehabilitation or operations/antibiotics), have also had niggling NQR soundness issues that the owners struggled with for a bit before ulcers appeared… which makes me think sometimes, there is a significant correlation between the arrival of ulcers and a possible physical cause.

I saw a few flags in your post (not from you, specifically) that reminded me of one of the worst cribbers I ever took care of - I actually made a thread about him just like you. I tried so hard to make his life as pain-free as possible, but his owner threw a huge wrench in everything because she did not want him to have more than 2-4hrs of turnout a day, her excuse being he ripped shoes off acting up… and he did act up in the paddock, because he never got to burn excess energy and spent 2/3rds of his day in a stall… as a young horse… Anyway, his owner really proved to me that no matter how much $$$$ & treatment you throw at a horse’s ulcers, if you aren’t willing to change the horse’s lifestyle, those ulcers come back in full force. Treating for ulcers does very little to ensure the horse’s condition is ulcer-free permanently - and being without ulcers is never a permanent condition. I know a lot of people who treat, see minor improvement, but don’t change the management/lifestyle of the horse and then a year or so down the road are right back in the tree they barely climbed out of.

The point being is that ulcers do not spontaneously spring up – they are a Hansel & Gretel breadcrumb trail that something has gone on, recent or otherwise, that has had an adverse affect on the horse. Which you probably know, but most owners don’t.

Is he reactive in any way? Pain anywhere, as in his back?

A six year old with navicular, to me, suggests there might be a lot physically going on with this horse… not necessarily my (or your) call to say he should not be ridden, but looking back on the horse I mentioned above, who at the time was also six – he had just about everything wrong with him from his pasterns down… pedal osteitis & navicular up front… and while he was not lame as in limping, I personally never thought he was comfortable with the work asked of him. His owner and vet thought he was fine for the work intended (paralleli stuff, 5 days a week of lunging type work). The few times I was asked to work him, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything but hand-walk him in the indoor as I genuinely thought he was hurting everywhere which is why his lameness seemed subtle, since it was not just one leg, but all of them. He was absolutely rank to deal with and I think so much of it was because he had undiagnosed physical discomfort (everywhere, I think).

It can be very frustrating too when you might have all the horse needs to feel better available to you, but the owners won’t play dice.

Good luck. I agree with Allons-y, and think this horse and his owners are lucky to have you.

The vet didn’t find any pain, after the corrective shoeing was in place. But it sounds like your guy didn’t have obvious pain either. I can recommend massage/chiro and hope the owners are game. They are wonderful people as far as trying to play ball to figure this guy out. But they don’t have unlimited funds, so I’m not sure how far we can go ultimately. The gastrogard is definitely a bank breaker.

I’ve never ridden him On the ground, he feels a little tight/locked all over, but I think some of that is mental stress.

I worry too about a horse this young having navicular in already. I’m worried he won’t be as long lived as I’m used too.

[Glyphica]

@meaty ogre

Sympathies from a fellow cribber from hell (he has since passed on, God rest his soul, last year at the age of 24).

Metal angle iron may sound harsh, but my cribber actually had good teeth despite cribbing on metal. They only need to use enough pressure to create the air sucking, and he actually cribbed lighter on the metal than on wood. I would try putting some on the surface of his stall and see how it goes.

Consider trying Chaste Tree Berry. It is a dopamine agonist that works on the same (dopamine) pathway that is activated by the cribbing horse. This did reduce the cribbing desire for my horse. Your mileage may vary but it’s cheap. I got mine from herbalcom.com. I don’t know if they’re still in business because it’s been a few years, but I bought the whole berries and ground them in a coffee grinder. I think I used 2 tablespoons morning and night. I did 3 weeks on and one week off. Because it’s a dopamine agonist it’s good to cycle and then taper.

Ulcer treatment with Ulcergaurd made mine worse. Although I can’t prove it with certainty, I am convinced that the omeprazole caused delayed gastric emptying and resulted in IBD-like symptoms in the hindgut. I decided to use fenugreek instead (again, I used whole seeds from herbalcom, ground in a coffee grinder). Here’s a couple links to some abstracts. I can’t say for certain that it worked because I didn’t have him scoped again, but I was very satisfied by the improvement in his body condition and behavior. Very very cheap.
http://www.ivsajournals.com/article_4590_8.html
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874102001174

I found over the 16+ years that I owned him, the thing that affected his cribbing the most was herd dynamics. He was the alpha, but was really too nervous and anxious to carry that role well. He always did best with very docile horses who never challenged him. I always thought that maybe it was pain-related, but I had him through many episodes of injuries and stall rests, and it never affected the cribbing nearly as much as changes in herd dynamics.

Finally, I’m sure that you know the difference between cribbing and wood chewing, but his attacking the run-in like a beaver sounds like he may be a chewer and a cribber (God help you if so!). I would either start him on a high quality chelated mineral supplement, and possibly consider pulling blood to check his vitamin e and selenium levels. Stress depletes selenium, which can also affect iodine and other minerals in a chain reaction. Some nutritional tweaking might be in order especially if he’s already not looking up to par.

Good luck!

I’ll definitely discuss those options with the vet (I have a long list of stuff for him now, poor man). He’s definitely just a cribber, but he cribs so violently that the wood gets destroyed. We had a bunch of bloodwork done and everything is normal.

Herd dynamics is interesting. I pulled him out of the field of young horses as he seemed to be the odd man out. He’s out with two of my older fellows now and seems to be more included, although he still doesn’t seem buddy-buddy with them. This is his first herd time since he was a foal. Maybe that is stressing him out?

[Wayside]

@Glyphica

Has anyone had a cribber go through ulcer treatment? How long did it take to see improvement? We’re at day 10, with 20 more days. He seems a little calmer, but still doesn’t look comfortable/happy. He has another vet appointment on Monday.

Within the first couple of days of omeprazole (Abler), my mare seemed subtly more interested in eating. She started finishing what was in her feed pan instead of leaving it to look for a place to crib after a few bites. Other than that, there were really no obvious changes, even after 30 days, but outside of the cribbing she’s never seemed like a particularly stressed or uncomfortable animal.

[CFFarm]

Try the prebiotics also. Sometimes does wonders.

[Obsidian_Fire]

I have a cribber also, altho nowhere near as bad as you describe. Water on the floor, free choice hay, treat ulcers, low stress lifestyle, buddy, daily turnout… he still cribs if his collar is removed.

Have you considered a calming supplement? Such as one with Valerian in it, and supplemental magnesium?

How long have these folks had this horse, how long has he been at your barn? Sometimes tincture of time will help.

You sound like a great BO.

[Glyphica]

Update:

We just finished his ulcer treatment and he definitely looks better and is eating better. We are continuing generic omeprazole (owners can’t afford to keep on with GG) for time being. All the stall recommendations have helped tremendously (everything on floor and a little corner cribbing station). We are about to put him onto Smartcalm Ultra to see if that helps with his overall anxiety levels. I’m also trying to find him a better herd as he still hasn’t integrated with my old guys – I’m worried that it is contributing to his anxiety. But overall he is doing better.

i just wanted to check in and thank everyone for your advice and kind words. I’m the BM, not BO, but I want to say that I work for the best BO in the world who has always been as concerned for the horses’ welfare as I am. I am also fortunate to have a great staff and wonderful clients. Our horses are family.

[Simkie]

This might help on the costs of Gastrogard, Glyphica!

https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/f…-equine-ulcers

Glad to hear he’s doing better

[Glyphica]

@Simkie

This might help on the costs of Gastrogard, Glyphica!

https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/f…-equine-ulcers

Glad to hear he’s doing better

Thanks! I’ll look into it.