Warning If You Own A Cribber

[carthorse]

This morning I'm lucky I still have Jim. The vet thinks his cribbing caused a very bad colic attack - his colon was so distended with gas that it had become displaced around his spleen. Luckily two vet visits & a sleepless night spent lunging & walking him cleared the gas & everything went back to it's proper place without surgery.

I've read lots of research that says cribbers don't swallow air & wearing a collar is cruel as it just creates more stress. However last night my vet said that she sees this type of colic for two reasons - horses that have gorged themselves & cribbers. Jim hadn't been gorging but he does crib quite a lot. Based on last night he's now wearing a collar - I don't like them but I don't want him dead!

I was lucky in that he hadn't looked colicky earlier, just a bit quiet. After having him in for a couple of hours I fed him (as usual) then went to go. As I got to my car I turned round to look & saw he wasn't eating but instead was hanging his head over the door - I went back & within minutes he was showing severe classic colic symptoms so I got the vet as an emergency call. Without that last look from my car I think he'd now be dead.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE IF YOU HAVE A CRIBBER BE AWARE OF THIS RISK!

 

[smaggi]

Thank god you went back. You are so incredibly lucky that you checked on him again. I have a light cribber and he has a miracle collar. He's not in a stall for very long unless the weather is bad. I haven't been using his collar lately because I now keep him in a blocked off section of the barn with a wide open door that has access to a round pen so he can move around. I also now give him free choice hay. Now the only time I see him crib is right after he eats his oats. He only cribs about 4 times and then starts eating his hay. I also jsut ordered some pony pops to hang in his stall area. Your post is starting to make me second guess this new plan.

 

[andreaB]

have to admit that i owned an out & out cribber for 5 years , she even did it with a collar , i just gave up on here , she was happiest left to it

however , she never once coliced , neither am i aware of her doing so with previous owners & i'm in touch with her current owners who have not reported any colic

i think cribbers often get too easily tarred as colic nightmares , i'd certainly have another with little hesitation if it were the right horse for me

 

[KarinUS]

have to admit that i owned an out & out cribber for 5 years , she even did it with a collar , i just gave up on here , she was happiest left to it

however , she never once coliced , neither am i aware of her doing so with previous owners & i'm in touch with her current owners who have not reported any colic

i think cribbers often get too easily tarred as colic nightmares , i'd certainly have another with little hesitation if it were the right horse for me

Ditto here. I am happy your horse is okay but have to say that I have spent the last 3 years researching cribbing and getting tons of research material together and I have not found a single study that related it to the kind of colic you describe. Many things could have brought on this gas colic. For example we had one horse start to colic once we put her on a common joint supplement. Afterwards I found out that these types of supplements have ingredients that have caused gas colics in numerous horses, etc.
It is my personal belief that an equine stereotypy like cribbing is not helped by cribbing collars at all. There are ways to manage a cribber and lessen their need to crib.

 

[Jessey]

I have to agree witht he above - my mare got a serious colic form sand/soil ingestion, her colon also distended and she spent 5 days in hospital, the first 2 on intensive care. San colic doesn't normally cause the gas retention my girl got, it just happened
So long as a collar is used carefully, and along side addresing the real cause of cribbing I don't disargee with their use at all

 

[smaggi]

KarinUS and Jessie, you are making me feel a lot better about my new plan. Cisco always seems to have a healthy appetite and his cribbing has reduced a lot in his new stall environment.

 

[KarinUS]

If I was Jim's owner (or even if I was Jim's vet) I would ask myself a few questions:
How long have you owned (or known) Jim?
For how long has he cribbed?
How often in that time frame has he had gas colics?
If he has cribbed for awhile but the gas colic is a new thing, then what has changed? New supplement? New feed? Drought that exposed the soil and made sand colic more likely?

 

[LMS]

I'm glad to hear that your horse pulled through. Scary isn't it?

I too owned a cribber years ago but I must say: each horse is an individual & what sets off colic or what ever is the cause of the horse's reason for cribbing is its own.

My gelding was highly intelligent, high strung & needed direction (meaning he wasn't really an alpha in the herd though he was never picked on). He did have a tendency to colic but I think that was because of the type of horse he was in general, so many factors would come into play.

From what I've seen my gelding (and other cribbers), they do swallow the air (you hear the grunting & swallowing sounds). He was so addicted (because it releases feel good chemicals, the endorphins I believe?) that he was able to crib without grasping an object with his top front teeth.

I did find though that when properly put on, the neck strap, at the time it was the "nut cracker" type I used (the one with spikes was not effective & just plain cruel for him), and it drastically curbed down his cribbing.

Without it, he would spend the whole day at his favorite pole & crib continuously. He would not move from his spot! So no food & no water, these didn't interrest him.

 

[KarinUS]

I did find though that when properly put on, the neck strap, at the time it was the "nut cracker" type I used (the one with spikes was not effective & just plain cruel for him), and it drastically curbed down his cribbing.

Without it, he would spend the whole day at his favorite pole & crib continuously. He would not move from his spot! So no food & no water, these didn't interrest him.

I was just wondering what else you tried to reduce his need for cribbing other than the collars - like adjustment in diet, forage enrichment, etc.

 

[LMS]

I had the vet check out everything: management, feed, exercise...

We adjusted the whole feeding program for every single horse in the barn.

With him,the reason he cribbed was because his brain was on overdrive. Like I mentioned, he was highly intelligent & a nervous boy/high strung. He needed to be stimulated or rather have his brain kept busy.

After the novelty of being in a large pasture (10acres minimum) that had many thing to keep a regular horse happy & busy (creeks, trees, hills, pathways to other fields & trees) would wear off, you would find him by himself cribbing away.

 

[KarinUS]

Yes, but what was his diet?

 

[smaggi]

I switched Cisco's feed to grass hay with no alfalfa hay and we also switched from sweet feed to Purina Strategy pellets. That was combined with all of the other adjustments I described above and reduced his cribbing a lot, but not completely.

 

[KarinUS]

smaggi,
that is excellent! I am so pleased for you and your horse!

LMS,
example:
Cribbing horse (no collar) on 5-8 pounds of pellets (grain product); cribs a lot; anxious; can't keep weight on:

Same cribbing horse (no collar) on 2 pounds or less of pellets (grain product); cribs much less; much less anxious; gains weight on multiple forage based diet:

I have found vet advice notoriously unhelpful when it comes to managing cribbing horses. I think thats in large part due to the fact that they are all individuals like you said. Your vet isn't there to observe what triggers his cribbing and what management factors lessen the need to crib.
For the horse above for example (in addition to other management factors) it has become apparent that he can not 'stomach' more than 2 pounds of grain products. More grain and he cribs much more and eats much less. There's a leptin connection there as well but that's a different subject.

As far as swallowing air I would like to refer to a study by McGreevey (1995) to determine the origin of the grunting noise that found through x-rays that:

What we saw did nothing to support the view that air was actively ingested, because there was no movement of the tongue as one would expect in true swallowing. Instead each horse showed an explosive distention of the oesophagus which prompted no peristalsis. The grunt weas generated by the soft palate flapping air rushed from teh mouth on it's way to the oesophagus.

 

[Jessey]

Smaggi, you said he now only cribs after his grain - have you tried adding probiotics or mint to his feed?, these will both help nutralise excess acid if that is causing the problem (like indigestion) and generally settle his tummy and help digestion. A good natural probiotic is live natural yougurt or you can buy special horse powders, mint can be brought here, just dried and crushed, but you should be able to get it like that or even mint oil would do the trick

J x

ETA: karin you posted the same picture twice - I'm sure you didn't mean to.

 

[specialpants]

Im new here but just had to comment...

I too own a cribber and have never had a problem in all the years of woning him.

I think its very short sighted of your vet to say Cribber = colic as it has immediately stopped her looking beyond that to find a cause. It was probably mor elikely to have been from soil injestion or eating bed etc.

It is very possible your horse has got gastric ulcers. These are incredibly painful. Its now proved (beyond doubt) that horses crib to produce saliva to neutralise stomach acid, and reduce pain caused by ulcers.

If Jim is insured (I assume he is) I would ask for a refferal from your vet to another vet who has an endoscopy tube long enough to treat horses. They will look into jims tummy and see what problems are there. They will then most likely prescribe Gastroguard (its incredibly expensive) However you will have a different horse inside a month. Your insurers will pay for all this (check before going ahead, but if your vet refers you then they have to).
Your vets will already probably exclude Colic when you renew your policy so its best to claim for anything mildy related to digestion now.

Put him onto a high fibre low starch diet and a good balancer, Magnesium oxide is excellent as well.

I hope Jim is better soon, and please think carefully about the miracle collar he could be in alot of pain and no way to tell you.

 

[KarinUS]

ETA: karin you posted the same picture twice - I'm sure you didn't mean to.

Fixed it.

 

[LMS]

That's very interesting info on how cribbing is not the swallowing of airper say karinUS thanks for sharing that.

Anyhoo, gotta get off the computer (work is getting in the way of surfing )

And this horse i'm reffering too was decades ago, have to dust the cobwebs out of my brains to remember...

BRB

 

[smaggi]

Smaggi, you said he now only cribs after his grain - have you tried adding probiotics or mint to his feed?, these will both help nutralise excess acid if that is causing the problem (like indigestion) and generally settle his tummy and help digestion. A good natural probiotic is live natural yougurt or you can buy special horse powders, mint can be brought here, just dried and crushed, but you should be able to get it like that or even mint oil would do the trick

Yes, 90% of the cribbing I see now is when he has finished eating his strategy pellets. He starts it when he reaches the bottom of the bowl, so I don't think it's because the pellet upset his stomach or anything. Are you talking about the same yogut that humans eat? I have a mint herb plant at home that I could dry and add to his pellets. Could I just try to feed him some mint leaves? I have thought about trying Ulcer Guard, but I wanted to put all of the other changes in place first.

 

[holiday]

I thought i would just let you know i also had a mare who was a cribber and very prone to colic, i always knew when she was poorly and she was on only a hay diet. She would look colicky and i would walk her and never had to have the vet to her. As she would improve in an hour but she never got full blown colic symtoms just a "tummy ache" as such.

Unfortunately i went on holiday and a friend looked after her - she coliced whilst i was away and had to be put down. I personally think it was due to the fact her routine had changed and she wasnt ridden just turned out for shorter periods of time as well.

I didnt turn her out for long periods of time but she was worked quite hard and i was always aware of her problems, if she was turned out all day she would stand at the gate cribbing and weaving so i turned her out when i was able to fetch her back in again when she was fed up, it didnt matter if there was grass or hay out for her she hated it in the field.

We also had a grade a showjumper who cribbed constantly with or without a collar, he was fed a high grain ration and never once showed any signs of colic even though he travelled the Europeon circuit, he looked fantastic but cribbed even when turned out all day in the Winter when he was having some time off!!!!! And he loved to be out in the field!!!!!!

 

[puzzles]

one of my soulmates died a couple of years ago - a beautiful, healthy 5 year old thoroughbred mare yet unbroken and a little depressed - dies from, er, something colic (damn my memory).
i know why she died so unnecessarily - from not enough forage, too much concentrates, no (or very rare) turnout, and above all stress.
her digestive system was full of gas.
i watched her live in agony for acouple of weks before i turned up to the yard and she wasn't there..."she was going to be a racehorse" and all.
though we all cried it was more devastating for me because it felt like i was the only one there who fully realised that it was actually due to our (well, their) causeand it could have been prevented!

i blame her owner 100%.

never again . . .

the owner would not believe me (many won't) but it's really hard to think that, if i had been her sole carer/owner, she would never have died - and hers was an experienced, 30-odd owner here who should have known darn well better!

as stable vices are caused by stress and depirivation of stimulation (not boredom, specifically, as many believe) cribbing collars and grills/deprivity of places to chew on, etc, only increase stress levels. trying to physically stop it e.g. by yelling/smacking/pulling horse away, etc) has the same effect too, so please, please give your viced horsesthe best chance of full health and give them ad-lib forage, toys to stimulate and occupy, and preferably 24/7 turnout - vitally kept (stabled and when out)with a companion they cans ee and prefeably touch. this is possible by adding bars instead of walls/knocking out a few bricks in walls.

here are some cheap/free, homemade ideas:

bob apples in your horse's water buckets
you can buy toys/licks from reputable companies such as robinsons/ride away/derby house which often help tremendously to reduce stress.
add a stable mirror/s if your horse doesn't get in with/can't constantly see or touch another animal, especially horses.
placing a willow/beech/birch, or chestnut branch in your horse's stablefor him to strip and chew at as and when he pleases as he would when turned out/in the wild.
ad-lib forage - preferably hay - placed in 2 or 3 haynets will give him the freedom of choice, stimulating his brain.
if possible, feed forage from the floor - it hels to develop a smooth topline, is healtheir respiratorily and physically and saves you time.
hide slices of fruit/veg/trates in your horse's hay
if your stable has any bars/a manger, wedge a baby bottle - or even 2 - filled with a peppermint/beach flower remedy solution or apple juice - after showing him how to work it of course.

just think, does your horse really need to be kept in: it is a far cheaper, time-freeing and healthier oppotunity to turn out, every day if not 24/7. all breeds and horses can live out; so if in any doubt, just go for it!


i would definately consider adding an antacid (such as feedmark settlex) to help settle the acidity levels in the stomach (often caused by too much concentrates/not sufficient fibre in the daily diet) .
also reduce the concentrate levels - not by reducing how much you feed, but by adding a vit&min supplement/feed balancer alongside a forage--based feed, such as one form the dengie range(which are superb).
ask a nutritionist if in any doubt (google it)