Conference noted::equitation

    We have such a critter and we keep a small, jowl sweat on him at
    all times and that has stopped his cribbing/windsucking.  He really
    does both without it.
    
    As far as the others go I can't really say if they picked it up
    from him (we have one other).  Now that I come to think of it she
    only does it in the pasture on one board and she did it before she
    came to us as she wasn't allowed outside for the first three year
    of her life and out of bordum she started to chew.  She chews but
    doesn't windsuck.
    
    Have you noticed your other horse doing it as well?
    
    GOOD LUCK
    

       My mare was stabled for 6 months next to an atrocious cribber. I
       was worried she'd pick it up but she never did. She did hurt the
       wall however as she would kick it whenever he leaned over and
       started cribbing on the wall between them.  She disliked it as
       much as I did. He had a cribing collor and while it didn't stop
       him totally it really slowed him down. liesl

I've got two horses that have been constant companions for two years.
One is terrible about cribbing. The other has never shown an interest.
I don't think your horse will pick it up.

/ed

    
    It seems I"ve had a barn full of cribbers forever. The gelding that
    I have now is a cribber and a windsucker. With the collar on, he's
    fine. He won't touch anything. The minute you take it off he goes
    straight to a fence to crib or a bucket to windsuck off of.  He
    just moved to a farm in Boxboro where he's in quite a bit of the
    day, they took the collar off the second day and he hasn't worn
    it since. He hasn't cribbed or windsucked at all. My old gelding
    did teach my colt how to crib, but I think mostly that was out of
    boredom. He soon stopped.
    
    Tufts vet school is doing a study of chronic cribbers now. During
    the early part of the summer they came out and tried to study my
    gelding. As soon as he realized he was being watched he stopped.
    They were there for four days, he didn't do anything the whole time,
    the minute they left he went at it like a madman.  The school is
    experimenting with a non addictive drug that will help cure a
    windsucker. Where cribbing is mainly a bad habit, windsucking releases
    a chemical into the horses system, where they actually become addicted.
    
    Marianne
    

    
    
    My gelding has always cribbed but never windsucked.  The two
    3 years olds learned it from him.  My stallion and pony, stabled
    in another spot, never picked it up.  I tend to think the young
    ones learned it from my gelding.  The three of them chew anything
    in sight which means almost every tree in the pasture.  Creosote
    helped for a while but now it doesn't seem to help at all.
    Perhaps an older horse might not pick it up but a younger one
    could assume this is normal horse behavior.  Kind of like cigarette
    smoking....
    
    

    I too, have been lucky.  In the nine years that I've owned Cheyenne,
    we've been at three barns that had cribbers/windsuckers and he's
    never showed any interest in picking up the habit.  I do know that
    when he was at one place where all he had was a 3 sided walk-in
    shed, and a medium sized corral, he did chew on tree bark.  But
    I think that was more due to lack of something in his diet becuase
    it only happened in the winter.
    
    We use to deter the horses from doing this two ways. 1) We used
    to use red pepper/creosote on the damaged areas and 2) we used to
    scatter about 1-2 qts. of grain on the ground at night for the ones
    in paddocks with walk-ins.  They spent most of the night hunting
    for the grain and not fighting, or cribbing.  We had pretty good
    luck. (I tend to think that cribbing starts out of boredom then
    becomes habit.)
    
    I have a copy of Horse & Rider Magazine's "Horse Women #10" (I think
    it is from summer of '87) and it has an article called "The Cribbing
    'Junkie'" by Brenda A. Fisher with Dr. A. Simon Turner, BVSc, MS.
    The article goes into some of the why's and cures including the
    "modified Forssell's procedure" which includes surgically cutting
    the throatlatch nerves and muscles.
    
    If anyone would like a xerox copy, please send me E-mail on INK::REED
    and I'll send it through interoffice mail.
    
    Roslyn
    
    

    I would be very careful about spreading grain out on the ground
    for horses to pick through.  Although it is not frequent, horses
    do sometimes swallow small stones and other hard debris.  In most
    of those cases, it will quickly pass through their digestive system.
    Sometimes however, it stays lodged in the intestine.  The horses
    body detects the intruder and begins to make it benign by buiding
    a calcification around it.  This process continues until there is
    finally an obstruction and subsequent colic.  If anyone has the
    opportunity or disadvantage to have to visit the Rochester Vet Clinic,
    look at the far wall from the office entrance and you will see a
    showcase of some of the calcified objects removed during colic surgery.
    An ounce of prevention...
    
    Bob
    

    Another problem with horses eating grain off the ground is 
    sand colic.  The sand will just sit in the bottom of the
    stomach, until there is too much, and the horse will colic.
    For this reason I try to put hay in a haynet if the horse
    is going to be outside where there is gravel and sand.  Bob
    I've seen those calcified "objects" up at Rochester, its
    really amazing to think they came out of some poor horse's
    belly!
    
    

    I can't stand the suspense!  
    What "things" did they find?
    Do most of these animals survive? (I Hope).

    The things in the showcase are objects which were swallowed and
    calcified over time.  Some of them look like rocks the size of a
    large grapefruit.  It is a process very similar to that of a pearl
    in an oyster where a tiny piece of sand turns into a large pearl.
    I don't know if all of them were survivers but I'd be willing to
    bet that some of them didn't make it.
    
    Bob