If your horse has recently been confined to his stable more than you’d hoped, then you both may be feeling pretty fed up – boredom busters for horses will become your new best friend.

While bored horses are at a higher risk of developing stereotypies, most horses settle to restricted turnout if their mates are also stabled. Still, you might want to try some of the following ways to keep your stabled horse happy and healthy.

Boredom busters for horses

1. Stable toys

There’s such a wide range of stable toys available – so we’ve rounded up the best stable toys for horses, which has something for every need.

Some are designed to keep your horse occupied with food, but this is no good if you’re battling laminitis or your horse is prone to obesity – instead, one of the best slow feeders might be what you need to keep them busy. Other toys encourage play without the need for food, so there is plenty to choose from.

If funds are tight, you could make your own. My pony loves a hanging swede – I make a hole through the centre and hang it up with baler twine, making sure he can’t push it against a wall to increase the challenge.

2. Encourage foraging

Horses are natural foragers, so encouraging their natural instincts to keep them busy is a real win. You could try…

• hiding carrots or horse treats in haynets
• hanging carrots up round the stable
• put apples in the water bucket for apple bobbing
• using treat balls

The Equine Behaviour and Training Association (EBTA) recommends providing different types of forage to stabled horses, to replicate as closely as possible the ‘patch foraging’ that is normal behaviour when grazing. For example, you could place the components of your horse’s feed in separate buckets or offer one haynet filled with hay, another with haylage, plus a large bucket of dried grass or other hay replacer placed around the stable.

Extending your horse’s eating time will not only prevent boredom, but it will stimulate more saliva production, which can help prevent gastric ulcers, too.

3. Licks

If your horse can be trusted to regulate his intake, one of the best licks – whether on its own or as part of a toy – can be beneficial for staving off boredom as well as supplying minerals, preventing dehydration and balancing electrolytes.

4. Carrot stretches

Stabled horses can get stiff, so why not maximise this time by practising carrot stretches? If you’re unsure of how to stretch your horse, or want to brush up your skills, here is a video from YouTube to help.

Handheld licks, like the Horslyx Mini (available on Amazon), are a great substitute for a carrot and can encourage your horse to hold the stretch for longer, too.

5. Pamper time

With little opportunity to indulge in a lovely long itch-busting roll, your horse will probably appreciate a good grooming session. A thorough groom can also help stimulate his circulatory system in a similar way to a massage.

You could even try using a specially designed massaging grooming tool, such as this massaging grooming glove, or mitt, such as the Equilibrium Hotspot.

6. Mirrors

Horses are herd animals, and if for any reason he has to be stabled away from his mates, or can’t easily see them from his stable, then the EBTA suggests using a mirror.

Don’t opt for a huge one, so he can avoid his ‘stable buddy’ if need be, and try him with it on the yard first, to ensure it doesn’t freak him out. If your horse is an aggressive type, he’s likely to be aggressive with his ‘mate’ so a mirror may not be a good idea. And of course, make sure it’s safely attached and non-breakable, like this plastic safety mirror on Amazon.

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If weather or injury has resulted in your horse being on box rest or stabled a lot more than you’d hoped, then you both may be feeling pretty fed up, but the best stable toys for horses are a great way to alleviate boredom. While bored horses are at a higher risk of developing stereotypies, such as cribbing, destructive chewing or box walking, most settle eventually if they have stablemates nearby or something to keep them occupied.

The main aim of stable toys for horses is to enrich your horse’s time in the stable, keep him mentally stimulated and extend the time he takes doing normal activities, such as eating. This is particularly important if you’re feeding a horse on box rest.

From the best flavoured licks to horse balls, there’s an ever-growing plethora of ready-made horse toys available. Some horses are easily pleased, though, so if funds are tight you could try making your own boredom busters for horses.

Best stable toys for horses

Likit Boredom Breaker

Colours: Red, glitter pink, aqua, purple or lilac

Ideal for food motivated horses or experienced lickers, this multi-directional double hanging challenge will keep the busiest horse occupied. Use with 1 x Likit (650g) and/or 1 or 2 Little Likits (250g).

Horsemen’s Pride Jolly Mega Ball

Sizes: 25in (red), 30in (blue) or 40in (green)

This heavy duty inflatable ball is made specifically for horses. It comes in three sizes to choose from depending on the size of your horse and his space.

Likit Snak-a-ball

Colours: Red, aqua, purple or lilac

This treat ball stimulates natural grazing behaviour and encourages your horse to stretch and use muscles from poll to tail. Use with Likit Snacks or any dry pellet feed.

HKM Ball toy

Colours: Rose or blue

The horse play ball helps provide entertainment and variety in the stable to prevent boredom. Thanks to the practical loop, it is easy to attach so that the horse can play with it at any time. Feed such as hay or carrots can also be attached to the small loops on the ball as an extra highlight. The ball is supplied with an air pump and is therefore ready for immediate use.

Shires Equine Scratcher

Size: 64cm x 28cm

Made from durable plastic with a texturised, flexible panel that can be mounted on a fence post or stable wall to allow your horse to safely scratch. It offers relief from insect bites, boredom or shedding a seasonal coat. It will not rot or crack whatever the weather and includes mounting hardware.

Likit Graze Maze Slow Feeding Mat

Colours: Purple or blue

A durable rubber lick mat that can be used to help relieve boredom, provide a distraction, or simply to slow the rate of feeding. You simply use it in the bottom of a feed bucket as a slow-feeder or spread a layer of our yummy Likit Graze Paste on the mat, onto which you can sprinkle feed and treats to create a delicious grazing plate for your horse. It’s also suitable for freezing so you could also make a horse ice lolly when the weather is hot.

I use one of these in my horses feed bucket as he only has a small feed and I noticed once using this it seemed to take him longer to eat his small ration. It’s easy to clean and it proven to be very durable.

Horsemen’s Pride Jolly Ball

Colours: Wide range of colours

This ball is made of hard wearing material that resists deflating when bitten, kicked, tossed around or rolled on. Some are also scented for extra temptation.

Stubbs Rock N Roll Ball

Colours: Red, blue, green, pink or purple

Combining a shape that is difficult to roll in a straight line with generous size, this dribble treat feeder will keep a horse very busy. The dispensing hole is 30mm diameter and suits most treats. Moulded from ultra-tough stubbythene, this toy is supremely durable.

Lemieux Horse Stable Toy

Colours: Banana, bee, cloud, cupcake, pig, robin, sausage dog, apple or popcorn

Keep your horse amused in the stable with this range of 3D horse toys in a number of different designs. It comes with a rope loop that you can hang up and some designs have a play rope through the toy for extra pull play, preventing your horse from getting bored. These toys are filled with natural husk and lined with hessian for extra strength.

Silvermoor Swingers Rope Kit

Colours: Green

This rope kit will allow you to hang a forage block (available separately) from your stable ceiling. The forage block is made from 100% natural ingredients with no added sugar. There are no corners and the swinging design, which together means your horse has to work to be able to eat it, slowing consumption and promoting saliva production, which buffers stomach acid.

Horsemen’s Pride Jolly Hay Ball

Colours: Blue or green

This hay ball is lightweight and durable and can easily be hung in a stall or outside. The larger holes allow for hay to be placed inside while the smaller holes are perfect for holding apple or carrot chunks to add a yummy treat.

Shires Ball Feeder

Colours: Orange, blue, purple, pink or green

This ball encourages a more natural, slower eating pattern than feeding from a bucket. Your horse rolls the ball around and feed is dispensed out the hole. It can be useful for relieving boredom or stress in the stable or paddock. Use with pellet feed or treats.

Bizzy Bites Bizzy Ball

Colours: Pink or aqua

You can hang this stable toy from the wall, leave it on the floor or attach it to the stable door. Inspired by baby and dog teethers, the textured wings provide an interesting surface for chewing which also aids a teething horse. Use with Bizzy Lick.

Shires Carrot Ball

This ball is designed to help increase dexterity and encourage learning with healthy treats as a reward. It should keep your horse entertained for hours if you hang it up in the stable. It is inflated using a bicycle pump and has an innovative “hug and tug” feature that varies the effort required to remove the carrots once the horse is familiar with the toy. Can be used with carrots, turnips, parsnips or apples – anything that will be held firm in the holes.

Horsemen’s Pride Pas-a-Fier

This apple-scented toy has a rotating device that allows your horse to massage his gums for hours. Hardware to mount the toy to the wall is included.

QHP Horse Stable Toy Novy

Colours: Pink, green or blue

This stable toy was thoughtfully designed with young horses in mind, this charming stable companion is crafted from durable suede and filled with naturally biodegradable coconut fibre—making it both safe and eco-friendly. The cotton and jute hanging cord allows for easy attachment in the stable, giving your horse a playful distraction to help reduce boredom. Whether for a foal or a full-grown equine, Novy is a fun and responsible way to support stable enrichment.

Do horses like stable toys?

Yes, most horses do. Providing horses with a stable toy can be a successful way for owners to offer additional mental stimulation and enrichment while they are stabled.

You might also be interested in:

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Owners need to better understand why horses perform behaviours such as crib-biting and weaving, research has highlighted.

A dissertation, by University of Winchester animal welfare science, ethics and law student Stephanie Pluto, looked at abnormal repetitive equine behaviours such as box-walking, weaving, crib-biting and windsucking. Five participants, equine and animal researchers and professors answered three questionnaires on these behaviours, including owners’ understanding of why they are performed, whether horses experience obsessive thoughts comparable to humans and whether diagnosing these behaviours as a “manifestation of obsessive compulsive and related disorders” would be helpful to gain a more “sympathetic” understanding from owners.

The participants discussed the fact that although it is “possible” horses experience obsessive thoughts and there are “similarities between human and equine obsessions due to similar neurophysiologies”, the extent of horses’ thoughts cannot be fully understood, and obsessions are “likely to be emotionally different compared to humans” and “heavily influenced” by lifestyle. It was also agreed that the use of physical prevention measures such as anti-weave bars and anti-crib collars are a result of “a lack of understanding” of the behaviours among owners.

Ms Pluto told H&H that despite previous research on abnormal repetitive behaviours, many owners still refer to these as “vices” and she would like to see better understanding of why a horse is performing a behaviour.

“Sometimes these things are treated like punishable behaviours, but it’s not the horse’s fault. I hope things like anti-weave grills and anti-cribbing collars will be reconsidered and people will look at management changes instead. Previous research has shown that when you stop horses using these coping mechanisms, they either try to find another way to do it or they get even more stressed, which can make the behaviour worse,” she said.

“The main message to owners, when it comes to management decisions such as turnout, is to really consider what is best for the horse and not just convenient for the owner.”

The Horse Trust’s director of equine behaviour Gemma Pearson told H&H that caution needs to be taken when comparing human conditions to equine, as humans have a higher cognitive ability, and because when horses perform abnormal repetitive behaviours, it releases endorphins, which makes them feel better. But she said abnormal repetitive behaviour in horses and OCD in humans are both pathological conditions, and it is important to understand these behaviours in horses are not caused by boredom.

“In horses, these are coping mechanisms for stress, which usually comes from an abnormal environment,” she said. “The more we can find out about these behaviours, the more we can look for alternative treatments and provide more evidence to why we need to prevent them in the first place. Similar to a horse being starved or allowing their hooves to become overgrown, I would say allowing a horse to be that stressed for a long enough period of time to develop these abnormal behaviours is a major welfare concern.”

Ms Pearson believes owners are becoming more understanding and she does not see as many people using physical preventative methods such as anti-cribbing collars and anti-weave bars, but she said other abnormal repetitive behaviours are sometimes being missed.

“People are recognising weaving or box-walking, but what people don’t always recognise is the other abnormal repetitive behaviours, such as a horse sticking their tongue out, nodding their head up and down or chewing wood. A little bit of this can be normal, but when they’re doing it really obsessively, a lot of these are abnormal behaviours. Some people might laugh at some of the faces a horse can pull, when actually they’re probably a coping mechanism.”

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Horses who crib-bite, weave and so on are often frowned upon in the equestrian world. But do some behaviours have greater effects on health than others? Professor Debra Archer FRCVS investigates

Many owners want to know how to stop cribbing and other undesirable equine behaviours such as wind-sucking, box-walking, weaving and other traits typically described as stable vices. But as these stereotypic behaviours develop to help some individuals cope with a life where they cannot forage, move around or interact with other horses as nature has designed them to do, is preventing a horse from expressing the behaviours that help it cope the best action to take?

Why it shouldn’t be described as a vice

A “vice” is a behaviour, habit or other negative trait that a person has. But animals don’t have that level of thinking; they aren’t doing these behaviours deliberately.

One study estimated that around 2.7 million horses worldwide display some form of stereotypic behaviour. These horses don’t need punishment, just a better understanding of why they are doing this and, ideally, methods for preventing these behaviours from developing in the first place.

Stereotypic behaviours include crib-biting, wind-sucking, weaving and box-walking. These are common, developing in around one-fifth to one-third of all horses. Their cause is complex and considered to be a combination of genetics and management.

Stereotypies are not seen in wild horses and are generally considered to be a coping strategy that some domestic horses develop. The behaviour helps these horses to adapt to a life in which they cannot feed, roam and interact with other horses, as they have evolved to do in the wild.

Stereotypies can be a cause of major concern and frustration to some horse owners and carers. In addition, they can reduce the financial value of these horses and can make them more difficult to sell or rehome. But how do they affect a horse’s health, and what can we do to help?

Crib-biting and wind-sucking have been studied most in terms of effects on horse health. These so-called “oral stereotypies” involve complex linking between the brain and gut, something we do not yet fully understand. Therefore, it is not surprising that most health effects in these horses relate to the mouth and gastrointestinal tract.

Some horses may crib-bite or wind-suck only occasionally, usually around feeding time or at other specific times, such as when tied up. Other horses perform this behaviour almost constantly and it is likely that the severity of crib-biting and wind-sucking behaviour is more significant to health than simply the fact that a horse displays these behaviours.

Crib-biting can affect both the teeth and skull. It can cause increased wear on the incisor teeth, although there is no current evidence that this causes specific dental issues. Horses that crib-bite or wind-suck, especially youngsters, can fracture the front (incisor) part of their jaw if they are startled and suddenly pull back while their teeth are grasping a fixed object. Fortunately, these types of fractures are usually relatively simple to repair and have a good prognosis.

Interestingly, there is some evidence from the USA and Japan that crib-biting or wind-sucking may be associated with arthritis of one of the joints within the horse’s skull. This condition, temporohyoid osteoarthropathy (THO), is relatively uncommon in horses. But when researchers looked at the clinical records of horses with THO, those affected were eight to 12 times more likely to be a crib-biter or wind-sucker.

Affected horses display head tilting or head shaking, ataxia (where they cannot coordinate their legs or balance properly), paralysis of the eyelid on the affected side and drooping of the muzzle. Diagnosis is based on endoscopy of the guttural pouch, X-rays or ideally computed tomography, and a horse may require medical treatment or surgery.

In horses in whom unusual signs related to the head such as head-tilt or head shaking develop, it is worth investigating THO as a potential cause of such signs, particularly in a horse that crib-bites or wind-sucks.

A chance of colic

Several studies have shown that crib-biting and wind-sucking are associated with an increased chance of colic. Importantly, a study performed at the University of Liverpool’s equine hospital showed that the frequency and duration of crib-biting behaviour was hugely important; the more often and longer the horses performed this behaviour, the more likely they were to have suffered from colic before.

Crib-biting and wind-sucking don’t increase the risk of all forms of colic, but these horses are more likely to develop large colon impactions and epiploic foramen entrapment, in which the small intestine becomes stuck through a natural opening within the abdomen. Surgical techniques have been developed to close the epiploic foramen in horses that develop this type of colic, as it can recur.

Gas colic, gastric ulcers and weight loss have also been associated with these behaviours. These might also be related to the severity of the behaviour; a horse that is crib-biting or wind-sucking for long periods of time during the day is likely to swallow a reasonable amount of air or spend less time eating.

The link between gastric ulceration and crib-biting or wind-sucking is not fully understood but both are associated with diet, particularly the need for forage to be available for large parts of the day such as through increased pasture access and small-holed haynets to encourage trickle feeding.

Despite the fact that abnormal hoof wear and issues relating to strain on joints and tendons and muscle fatigue are stated as problems in horses that box-walk or weave, there is actually very little scientific evidence to back this up.

It would seem possible that repetitive abnormal movements that occur with these “locomotor” stereotypies could result in musculo-skeletal issues developing, but further research is needed in this area.

Should we stop undesirable behaviours like cribbing?

This is a controversial topic and in general, the answer is no. This should be a last resort where management changes fail to make a difference and where the horse’s health is genuinely being negatively affected.

Studies have shown that physically preventing horses from performing stereotypic behaviours causes increased stress and they find other ways to cope – for example, weaving inside the stable itself if bars have been fitted to the stable door. Some described methods are barbaric and are simply not acceptable in terms of horse welfare.

The focus should be on trying to find ways to help these horses cope better – for instance, increased access to forage and turnout, interaction with other horses, fitting of stable mirrors so the horse can see his reflection, a change in type of stabling or in location on the yard so the horse isn’t in isolation on its own. These changes may not stop horses from cribbing or demonstrating other behaviours, such as wind-sucking, but it would seem logical that reducing the duration of time for which horses display these signs would benefit their health and welfare.

What does the future hold?

In humans, a huge amount of research is being done to explore how genetics affect development of different diseases and how genes affect our behaviour. This work is expensive to perform, but rapid improvements in technology and reduced costs of performing genetic studies are allowing us to understand more about the role of genetics in disease and behaviour in animals.

This ultimately may lead to better understanding of the genes that are associated with stereotypic behaviours in horses. This could allow horses, particularly youngstock, that are more likely to develop these behaviours to be identified, managed and monitored more carefully. In addition, it could allow drugs to be developed to help reduce the severity of stereotypic behaviours if these behaviours have already become established.

For the moment, the main focus must be on preventing these behaviours from developing in the first place, rather than wondering how to stop cribbing and other undesirable behaviours once they are established. Optimal management of youngstock, particularly around weaning and introduction to training, is critical.

Once established, these behaviours are frustrating to manage and can have various negative effects on health. Yards where large numbers of horses develop or display stereotypic behaviours must consider different ways of management to ensure sufficient access to forage, pasture exercise and social contact with other horses.

Ref Horse & Hound; 12 November 2020

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Is your horse stressy and anxious? Simple management strategies should help him settle, explains Kieran O’Brien MRCVS

While many horses adapt well to the limitations of domestication, some find coping more difficult. These are generally thought of as stressy types. Such animals may show behavioural traits such as volatility, restlessness, poor trainability and stereotypies (stable “vices”), or veterinary problems such as stomach ulcers, all of which reflect their maladaptation.

Although skilled management can ameliorate many of these issues, there are individuals in every breed – especially thoroughbreds and Arabs – for whom special adaptations must be made to keep them sane and happy.

As well as those who are intrinsically hyper-reactive, horses who are otherwise more placid can become stressed and anxious when placed in certain environments – on box rest, for example, or when separated from favoured companions.

Two’s company

Stressy behaviour often stems from unrecognised and perhaps very subtle pain, typically caused by a problem in the back or limbs.

A comprehensive vet examination, both in hand and under saddle, is essential. A management appraisal may then be necessary, starting with the horse’s lifestyle.

It has been shown that horses kept alone spend 10% less time eating and are three times more active than if stabled with another horse. While individual stabling is usually necessary for practical and safety reasons, enabling visual and tactile contact with an adjacent horse via a “talk hole” or even a grille between stables is far preferable to visual contact alone.

One study showed an 86% reduction in weaving when stabled horses were offered nose-to-nose contact. Owners who have noticed some affiliation between pairs of horses in a paddock should ensure they are stabled in adjacent stables, if possible.

Although a small proportion of horses react aggressively when first introduced to a stable mirror (suggesting that they do not recognise the reflection as their own), most accept them readily and may spend many hours close to them. Mirrors have also been shown to reduce weaving.

An anxious horse will benefit from maximum turnout. Many experienced riders compete their horses at a high level directly from grass, when the weather is appropriate. Grass intake should be carefully controlled (by strip grazing, for example) to prevent obesity, and necessary shade and fly relief provided.

If horses cannot be turned out together, paddocks can be divided into sections. While it may be tempting to provide a pony as a companion, preventing laminitis can be a major task if he is allowed to range freely with the horse.

The stressy type should be exercised daily, in conjunction with turnout, to release pent-up energy. He may be better alongside a more placid horse, or even with a more experienced rider – as his own rider may be transmitting non-verbal anxiety cues, such as increased rein tension. If a trial run reveals that he is happier in more confident hands, rider issues should be addressed.

It has been shown that exercised horses sleep on their side for longer than box-rested horses. Every effort should be made to provide an optimal sleeping environment, with a large bedded area and a deep bed.

Removing unpredictability from a horse’s life may have a calming effect. Some horses benefit from a strict feeding, exercise and turnout regime, and may prefer being kept at a yard where there is very little irregular daytime activity.

Comfort food

A horse’s blood glucose level peaks some two hours after a starchy feed, such as a mix containing cereal grains and molasses.

As it is around this time that most horses are ridden, it has been suggested that this “sugar rush” is responsible for bad behaviour. As 12 separate research studies in children have failed to show any link between blood glucose and behavioural changes, it is now generally accepted that the “sugar high” concept is a myth.

Studies have strongly implicated a link, however, between a lack of the normal diversity of micro-organisms in the human digestive system (known as the microbiome) and issues such as severe depressive illness. This “gut-brain” axis is the subject of much current research, including in horses.

In a recent study, horses were fed either a hay-only diet or a diet where 44% of the hay was replaced with barley. Not only did the intestinal microbiome alter significantly in the barley-fed horses, but their frequency of “blowing” (the startle response) when exposed to novel objects was significantly greater – that is, they found the objects more stressful.

We are only just beginning to probe the diet-behaviour relationship in horses, yet we do have enough evidence to recommend giving temperamental types feeds that are high in oil and low in starch. This will also help prevent gastric ulcers, another result of stress.

Owners often use calming products to solve what they perceive as behavioural problems in their horses. These products seem to be increasingly popular in all disciplines, although it is difficult to find much independent scientific evidence – rather than anecdotal reports – proving that they work.

If a calmer does work, it is worth asking yourself whether the substance is restoring an abnormally behaving horse to his normal state, or suppressing his inherent exuberant, difficult or even downright dangerous behaviour. If the former, attempts should be made to find the true underlying cause, rather than relying on a substance to put in his feed.

Research on calmers has shown a strong placebo effect on the rider. There is a need, however, for further independent research on the effect of these products on horses.

Trip hazards

Experience suggests that the most common cause of travel stress is the design of horse trailers.

In most cases, the partition means that the horse must stand facing forwards, confined to a space barely wider than his body. Removal of the partition to allow the horse to stand obliquely, if he wishes, and with a more wide-based stance, can have a dramatic effect.

The horse should be tied as loosely as possible to the front, rather than at the side, of the trailer, so he can swing his head to counterbalance the movement of his hindquarters.

His haynet should also be tied at the front, to prevent any further restriction of head movement. In addition, he may be happier with a small safety mirror or quiet company.

“We adapted our ways to suit her”

When Arab racing mare Johara Bint Shuwaiman arrived at the training yard run by Nikki Malcolm and her partner Nathan Sweeney, she came with a history of being “difficult” and had displayed major behavioural problems.

“From the start, it was clear that Johara was a worrier,” says Nikki. “She was very stressy, she travelled badly and would stand in the yard with her eyes staring and her ears pricked.”

Once veterinary issues, including gastric ulcers, had been ruled out, it was decided that the yard training regime would have to be adapted to Johara’s personality.

“We did a huge amount of trotting and slow canter work to settle her before doing any fast work,” says Nikki, adding that Johara preferred to be worked alone. “She was turned out with company, as much as possible, and placed on a low starch/high oil feed along with a probiotic and antacid supplement.”

Johara travelled to the racecourse with a quiet companion and was tacked up in the stableyard rather than the saddling boxes. The plan worked, as she won twice and achieved numerous placings.

“There are certain horses that become stressed and upset when they lose control,” says Nikki. “Rather than trying to force them to fit in, the key is to adapt the management and training regime to suit them.”

Ref Horse & Hound; 21 May 2020

Over the past decade, crib-biting has received much attention from researchers. By understanding this valuable work, we can contribute to the everyday management of crib-biting horses and ponies.

Grasping a solid object between his incisor teeth, the crib-biter will flex the brachiocephalicus muscles (running from his poll to the underside of his neck, sometimes termed the strap muscles) and emit an audible grunting sound.

All equine behaviour, including crib-biting, is controlled by the “supercomputer” — in other words, the brain. In 2018, researchers from the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) and Aberystwyth University revealed some fundamental brain-based differences between crib-biters and “normal” horses. These differences were discovered within two interlinked brain structures which control feelings of pleasure and motivation.

The nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area of the brain are naturally activated by the body’s own painkilling and pleasure hormones, known collectively as the endorphins. Crib-biters possess more than double the number of endorphin-binding sites (termed opioid receptors), making the pleasure and motive circuitry hypersensitive and much easier to activate than would be the case for the non-cribbing horse.

In fact, in this sensitised state, the grasping movement associated with the behaviour — which may have originally been directed at finding food — is likely to activate the pleasure circuitry in the same manner as food itself. This explains why crib-biting is so difficult to stop once the behaviour has become part of the horse’s daily routine.

In effect, we are looking at a type of addiction. And in the same way that humans use alcohol and nicotine in stressful situations, it is highly likely that crib-biting helps the horse to cope with the stress often associated with daily management regimes.

The practice of physical prevention with cribbing straps or electrified stable doors could therefore be interfering with a valuable stress-coping tool.

It is worth mentioning that stress seldom contributes positively to training and competition performance. My advice, based upon recent research findings, is not to physically prevent crib-biting but instead to consider alterations to the animal’s management regime.

Feeding the habit?

The opioid receptors display particularly high levels of activation during feeding, especially when the horse is eating a palatable concentrate feed. This is why the highest levels of crib-biting are observed after a feed.

If you are viewing a horse prior to purchase, a small quantity of highly palatable feed will soon reveal crib-biting behaviour. This trick can be useful at horse sales, where the new environment can bring about a temporary cessation in cribbing behaviour.

It is worth considering that the horse’s digestive system has evolved over 50million years to work best with an ad-lib high-forage diet, which is low in carbohydrates such as starch. In fact, cribbing levels in any horse can be significantly lowered if a diet naturally high in forage is provided — and there are some excellent bagged feeds available that feature highly digestible fibre and low levels of starch.

We don’t know for sure what causes these changes within the brain, although work conducted with rodents suggests that changes to the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area are brought about by two factors — namely, stressful life events and genetic predisposition, both of which must be in place for the alterations to occur.

Crib-biting often develops at the time of weaning or after a prolonged period of box rest, as both can be highly stressful to any horse. In a yard of 50 weanlings with identical management regimes, however, only five will ever become crib-biters. This suggests that a horse’s genetic make-up also determines whether or not crib-biting will develop.

At present, there is no genetic test to identify predisposed horses. Lessons learnt from rodents suggest that a proactive coping style, where the animal is always moving and vigilant, goes hand in hand with genetic predisposition towards brain alteration and stereotypy development.

From conversations with owners, this appears to be very much the case in the horse. Should you identify youngsters that are particularly highly strung or hyper-vigilant, my advice is to seriously consider adjusting your management regime to provide prolonged turnout and ad-lib forage to reduce levels of stress.

The bad news, from the rodent research, is that it is very likely that the brain changes are irreversible. We must therefore do our best to prevent them happening in the first place by following the principles of stress-free management.

Busting the myths

Many owners and researchers still link crib-biting to gastric ulcers and suggest that it may be a strategy to alleviate stomach pain.

Recent research by Dr Simon Daniels of the RAU has suggested that a direct link may in fact not exist. Instead, in his paper published in 2019, the findings indicate that both crib-biting and ulcers merely share a causal agent, and that this causal agent is stress.

In support of this idea, crib-biters who also have ulcers remain crib-biters long after the ulcers have healed, so there does not appear to be a direct link. Alleviating the stress helps the ulcers, but due to the addictive nature of the behaviour and the long-term nature of the brain changes, crib-biting will continue.

An additional belief is that crib-biters will “teach” non-cribbing neighbours this unwanted behaviour. As a result, crib-biters can be turned away from livery yards or are isolated from visual contact with others.

In truth, there has been little scientific research directed at this topic. What little work has been completed suggests that stereotypic behaviours, including crib-biting, are not copied in this manner. If we consider stress and genetic predisposition as causal factors, it is unlikely that copying plays a part. Instead, if there is an unusually high proportion of crib-biters in adjoining stables, this is almost certainly due to shared stressors or shared genetics.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, or even stereotypic, the priority should lie in the reduction of stress.

Time for a rethink?

When we looked into learning differences between crib-biters, horses who weaved and a group of stereotypy-free controls, we were surprised by the results. Both the crib-biters and weavers learnt a simple button-pressing behaviour much quicker than the non-stereotypy equivalents.

While pressing a button might not equate to the real-life training scenario, I’ve spent the five years since the findings were published asking owners and trainers what they really think.

At least 90% of the people spoken to find that horses who crib-bite are fast learners and fast thinkers, and do their jobs very well. Since this supports our 2015 findings, it might be time for a rethink. Rather than an unsightly, unwanted “vice”, crib-biting seems to go hand in hand with positive performance attributes. The role of hillwork in fitness

The author: Dr Andrew Hemmings is associate professor of equine science and head of the equine management and science school at the Royal Agricultural University in Gloucestershire. Teaching across a range of equine degree courses, he aims to make the complex topic of neuroscience relevant to horse management. His research interests are centred on the brain and behaviour. rau.ac.uk/equine

Ref Horse & Hound; 5 March 2020

Cribbing horses are more likely to be reacting to stress than to stomach discomfort, a new study has suggested.

Researchers from the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) have found that while crib-biting and gastric ulcers in horses may not be directly linked, stress could be the common denominator.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Veterinary Behaviour (March-April 2019), looked for the presence of ulceration, stomach pH, and gastrin — a hormone that stimulates the production of stomach acid.

The team looked at the stomachs of 42 dead horses — half of which were crib-biters — in the two-part experiment.

The RAU team found there was no difference in the concentrations of gastrin producing cells or the acidity in the stomachs between crib biting and non-crib biting horses.

While the sample size and logistics are limitations — as cadavers may not accurately reflect the physiology of the living stomach — the non-invasive approach has shed further light into the conditions.

“These findings suggest that anatomically and physiologically the stomachs from crib-biting and non crib-biting horses, in this study, were not different from each other,” said lead researcher Dr Simon Daniels, of RAU’s school of equine management and science.

“However in both humans and horses gastric ulceration is associated with stress — both environmental stressors and physiological stress, such as from increased free radical production and too few antioxidants.

“Similarly crib-biting behaviour is understood to be a stress coping mechanism for horses. These horses display higher levels of free radicals and reduced antioxidant defences, which is a sign of physiological stress, when compared to non crib-biting horses.”

He added that therefore crib-biting and gastric ulceration may not be directly linked conditions, “but the conditions may be linked together by stress”.

“If this is the case then management of horses that suffer with these conditions — for example by giving nutritional antioxidant support and reducing environmental stress by changing housing or turnout arrangements — may be beneficial in the welfare of this specific group of horses,” said Dr Daniels.

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New research has found more evidence to suggest crib-biting could be a way of soothing stress — and may inform research into human mental health.

Crib-biting — where a horse grabs hold of a solid object such as a stable door with his incisors and inhales, making a grunting noise — is considered a vice among horse owners.

Researchers from the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) and Aberystwyth University found neurological differences in horses who cribbed compared to those who did not.

They focused on a key part of the brain, the striatum, which receives dopamine. Dopamine functions as a neurotransmitter and is involved in reward, motivation and memory, among other things.

“We discovered some widespread neurological differences in horses who performed crib-biting behaviour,” said RAU’s Andrew Hemmings.

“The clear evidence of ‘neural sensitisation’ detailed in the research paper suggests that the performance of the food-motivated grasping behaviour might have self-stimulatory or rewarding consequences for the horse.

“On that basis, behaviours such as crib-biting could allow horses to ‘cope’ with stressful situations, in the same manner that humans use rewarding activities or commodities to counter the effects of stress.”

He added the findings “cast doubt” on whether the physical prevention of cribbing is a good idea.

“The presence of this behaviour raises a range of welfare-related questions because these activities normally develop under housing conditions which deprive the animal of food, social interaction and the opportunity to move freely,” he said.

“From a horse management perspective, physical prevention of crib-biting is not advisable as we could be interfering with an important coping strategy, leaving the horse vulnerable to the damaging and performance-reducing effects of stress.

“Rodents acting in this way are sometimes used to model human conditions such as schizophrenia, which are associated with altered function of the brain’s striatum. However, the anatomy of the rodent striatum is very different to that of the human, whereas the horse provides a much closer approximation.

“Therefore, there is potential for equine work such as this to inform future studies into human mental health.”

Continues below…

Are crib-biters better competition horses?

Crib-biters may actually make better competition horses due to changes in their brains and learning habits, according to latest research

Equine America launch an anti-chewing gel

The new gel has been formulated to prevent all types of horses and ponies from chewing stable doors, gates, fences

Neigh Station invented to prevent stable vices

Watching her young children play with their activity centre gave Susan Lyon an idea about how to keep stabled horses

The full paper, titled Causal and functional interpretation of mu- and delta-opioid receptor profiles in mesoaccumbens and nigrostriatal pathways of an oral stereotypy phenotype, has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Behavioural Brain Research.

The research was a collaboration between Dr Hemmings, Dr Sebastian McBride of Aberystwyth University, supported by Dr Matthew Parker of University of Portsmouth and independent equine nutritionist, Catherine Hale.

For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday.

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Jason Webb of Australian Horse Training is a renowned UK-based horse trainer with a passion for starting young horses, solving equine problems and teaching riders of all abilities and ambitions develop and strengthen the partnership they have with their horses. Here Jason gives a H&H forum user advice on how to handle her horse that "doesn't know the meaning of personal space"

Q: “My horse doesn’t know the meaning of personal space. I have a Welsh section C yearling colt who is an absolute sweetheart most of the time. He just wants cuddles and treats, but he walks in front of me and practically runs me over trying to get my attention. I try shooing him away with a lead rope but he just keeps coming back, plastic bags don’t work as he thinks there’s food in them. I would love to teach him tricks as I do that with my older horse but I need to get him out of my personal space first. He is not gelded and has not dropped yet. He will be gelded once the flies have disappeared. Do you have any ideas or suggestions?”

A: This is a quite common handling problem for horse owners. Most people love their horses, and the idea of being assertive in order to achieve a movement doesn’t always come naturally, but it is very important that you make sure you are a calm, consistent and decisive handler, particularly with a bold yearling.

You need to remember that if it takes longer than the magic three seconds for your horse to respond to your ‘ask’, it means you have turned your ‘ask’ into a ‘nag’! Your horse may well stop looking for answers and start to look to evade you or just walk over the top of you. We’ve all had a conversation with someone who talks and talks and doesn’t get to the point, leaving us either bored, frustrated or with our minds wandering; don’t be that person when you handle your horse! If he doesn’t respond to a gentle ask, you need to tell him assertively and once he has responded, leave him alone.

Timing is a fine art but be quick to see when your horse does the right thing, don’t keep asking when they give the correct response otherwise this will just make them switch off. The reward to doing the right thing is you leave them alone (you can give them a stroke too of course!).

Continued below…

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Being able to control your horse’s movements is the key. If you haven’t already, I would invest in a good quality rope head collar and use this whenever you are handling him, as horses like this know how to lean on a traditional halter, which makes it very difficult to control their movements.

A good starting point is to get your horse to look at you with both eyes when you are working with him, as a horse can’t move past you or into you when they have to keep looking at you. To do this, at first you will have to use a ‘bump’ on the halter, rather than a steady ‘pull’ on the lead rope, which horses learn to lean against. Trying to describe movements in an article can be confusing, so here is a relevant video that I hope will help.

In your letter, you also describe him enjoying treats and lots of affection. I don’t give my horse treats unless I am using them specifically for training purposes, when they are given to the horse when he has performed a particular exercise after a specific cue.

If you’ve ever seen my horse Diesel at demonstrations he picks up a hat and even bows but this was taught with treats. Used in this way, they are particularly useful for trick-training, so I would advise you not to give treats to your yearling as you won’t be able to use this method when training tricks in the future. I am also a great believer in letting youngsters grow up without too much contact with humans as they can get over-familiar and a bit ‘cocky’ like your chap. Whenever you do handle him, treat it as a lesson, so you are more likely to handle him with more authority while still being fair.

To improve yourself and your horse you are going to have to practice and persevere. Give yourself challenges, such as my monthly ‘Your Horsemanship’ challenges from on my online training resource www.yourhorsemanship.com and don’t be afraid to get help at this stage with your yearling; it is best to get on track with him now rather than when he is big and strong! I wish you every bit of success with him in the future.

Jason

For more information on Jason Webb visit his online training base Your Horsemanship, where you can learn a foundation in horse training with online lessons in groundwork, starting, and ridden fundamentals

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Crib-biting falls within the well-recognised category of stereotypical abnormal behaviour.

Considered an unsoundness, crib-biting is the term given to a horse taking hold of a fixed object, such as a fence or top of a stable door, with his teeth and pulling back on it, tensing the neck muscles and sometimes swallowing air. It is common for horses to crib-bite around feeding time, although the behaviour can occur at any time.

Crib-biting is common — between two and 15% of domesticated horses kept in stables around the world exhibit this behaviour, although this varies with breed and management. There is a suspicion that the tendency is inherited, but also a belief that horses learn to crib-bite from others in the yard.

Crib-biting and breeding

Researchers in Helsinki, Finland, have studied the prevalence of crib-biting in Finnhorses, a cold-blooded draught breed that has had a closed and well-documented studbook for more than

100 years.

They looked at the breeding and lineages of horses that were established crib-biters and compared them with non-crib-biters that were matched for age, type of work and management. Horses were not classed as non-crib-biters until they were 10 years old, since the habit can appear in horses up to that age.

It was clear that for this breed — and probably for all others — crib-biting is strongly linked to breeding. In other words, there is a clear genetic predisposition or tendency to crib-bite that can be inherited and passed on to succeeding generations.

But it is not a simple matter of straightforward inheritance, since the study shows that several genes must be involved and that the expression of crib-biting is not just a result of genetics. A horse may inherit the tendency to become a crib-biter, but there will have to be stresses or anxieties in the individual horse that precipitate the actual behaviour.

This article was first published in Horse & Hound magazine (13 November 2014)

Understanding stable vices

Research has shown that a foal's early experiences can affect his adult behaviour

What causes stable vices?

Why poor management is at the root of stable vices

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Watching her young children play with their activity centre gave Susan Lyon an idea about how to keep stabled horses happy and entertained.

Ms Lyon, from Ontario, Canada, told H&H:”The number of stabled horses that exhibit behaviour like box-walking or crib-biting is

just huge.

“I thought it would be possible to create an activity centre for horses that provides visual and aural stimulation.”

She set up her own company, Two Fair Mares, to manufacture the product, which is now available in the UK through Shires.

The Neigh Station includes a shatterproof mirror – to provide visual contact for horses that are separated from their stable-mates – a sliding latch with clicking sound for aural stimulation and a rope with a detachable toy rider for the horse to play with.

You can also buy the rider toy – which is available as a western or European rider – separately.

The Neigh Station is available from Shires and costs £59.99 or £19.95 for the rider toy.

This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (29 December 2011)

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Find out more about stable vices

Crib-biting and wind-sucking are unpleasant and disturbing habits developed by some horses.

They take hold of a firm horizontal surface with their teeth, arch their neck and gulp a mouthful of air.

Some affected horses repeat this stereotypic behaviour again and again, almost continuously; others display the habit intermittently.

At worst, these behaviours can lead to colic and poor health because of the excessive intake of air.

At the very least they affect dental conformation and spoil the stable or the stable door.

The habit is almost impossible to break.

Researchers in the USA studied the stereotypic behaviour of 16 long-term cribbers by monitoring them continuously by video camera.

They then analysed factors that might have increased or decreased the frequency of the crib-biting.

All the horses were stabled, with an hour of turnout per day, fed ad lib hay and short feeds twice daily.

The scientists found that once the habit was established, there was no correlation with age– in other words, horses did not get worse as they got older.

Across the whole group, cribbing was most frequent at night, which seems to contradict the commonly held notion that the habit may be linked to attention-seeking.

The amount of time spent cribbing varied from 10% to over 40% of the time.

As horses were about to begin a bout of cribbing, they all showed a typical behaviour, in which they licked the surface they were about to grasp with their teeth.

The experiment showed that horses cribbed less when fed oats than when fed sweet grain. An exercise period of more than 20 minutes reduced cribbing for the rest of the day.

When stable toys were introduced, the horses played with them for less than 5% of the time, but one toy – a spinning food dispenser – did slightly reduce the frequency of cribbing.

To conclude there appear to be three things that reduce crib-biting in established cribbers: increased exercise, reduced sweetness in the diet and some stable toys.

Of all these factors, changes in diet were likely to have the most beneficial effect.

This veterinary article was first published in the current issue of H&H (8 December 2011)

Do you want to find out more about stable vices?

Researchers at the University of Liverpool are looking for volunteers to take part in a postal questionnaire on crib biting and wind sucking behaviour.

The questionnaire should only take 15 minutes to complete and will focus on your horse’s behaviour, health and daily routine.

It is hoped that their confidential survey — which focuses on horse health and management — will ultimately provide owners with information on how this behaviour can be reduced and prevented in the future.

The University of Liverpool have provided the following definitions of the behaviour they are looking for:

Crib biting — the horse will seize a fixed object with his/her front teeth and pull back on it, tensing the neck muscles. A characteristic grunt will typically be heard and it is common for the horse to perform this behaviour in association with feeding. However, it can occur at any time.

Wind sucking — this behaviour is similar to crib-biting but the horse does not grasp onto a fixed object. The horse will adopt the same posture and tension of the neck muscles as a crib-biter and will draw air into his/her mouth.

If you would like to take part in the survey please email your name, address and telephone number to cribbing@liv.ac.uk.

Call Ebony Escalona MRCVS from the University of Liverpool on 07961 809633, or see http://www.liv.ac.uk/equine/studiesandtrials/cribbing.htm for more information.

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More articles on stable vices

View competition horses for sale

Crib-biting is the most common stable vice, or stereotypy. It is where a horse grasps a solid object, such as a stable door, and inhales air. It is usually a stress response to management conditions.

What makes crib-biters different?

A small bundle of nerve cells in the horse’s forebrain known as the nucleus accumbens (NA), and an even smaller group of cells in the midbrain known as the ventral tegmental area (VTA), are key regions responsible for controlling behaviour.

In response to events that horses find naturally rewarding, such as eating, the VTA releases a chemical messenger, dopamine, which binds to docking sites within the NA known as dopamine receptors. It is thought that this binding effect may well be what produces the feelings of pleasure.

In humans, repeated activation of this system by illicit drugs such as cocaine causes such receptor sites to multiply and become more sensitive.

Interestingly, laboratory-based experiments indicate that where the dopamine receptors are concerned, brains from crib-biting horses show similar alterations to those of people who have taken cocaine.

Cribbing is therefore likely to have rewarding consequences for the horse and, in this respect, could be used to counter the effects of stress.

Training crib-biters

Young horses learn through trial and error. A stimulus, such as leg pressure, motivates a range of responses, one of which will be correct.

Through the timely delivery of a reward, a good trainer will bring about precise activation of the NA and appropriate brain stimulation, which encourages the responses that we need in a competition horse.

Masters students at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester set up an experiment to assess whether there was any difference in the way crib-biting and non-crib-biting horses tackled a simple task and learned from it.

Ten crib-biters and 10 “control” horses had to select a large playing card marked with a circle and ignore one marked with a cross in order to obtain a food reward.

Crib-biters required fewer tries to reliably select the correct card. However, when the cards were switched, cribbers took much longer to cotton on.

So, if subjected to excessive repetition and positive reinforcement, crib-biters seem to become quite fixed in their response and can find it difficult to progress to more complex tasks.

It must be stressed that buying horses that crib-bite should not be discouraged. In fact, aspects of their behavioural repertoire could be favourable.

Translated into an everyday competition scenario, whether this is teaching a new dressage movement or negotiating a technical cross-country fence, a crib-biter’s ability to react quickly to his rider’s instructions could be a help rather than a hindrance.

For this article in full, see the current issue of Horse & Hound (3 September, ’09)

Looking for more articles on stable vices?

View competition horses for sale near you

Horse owners are being asked to fill in a survey about horse habits in a bid to combat stereotypical behaviour.

A veterinary pharmaceutical company called CEVA, together with scientists at Nottingham University, are working on a way of curing the behaviours using pheromones — or smells.

The initial research will look at finding away to cure or reduce behaviour such as crib biting, weaving or box walking.

The company already markets pheromone products that have been successful in reducing complaints in dogs and cats such as urine spraying or fear of fireworks.

The products are can be sprayed onto a blanket or administered as plug-ins, like air fresheners.

Liz Mossop of Nottingham Vet School, said: “Equine stereotypical behaviour, such as crib biting and weaving is a difficult problem to manage for many owners.

“Pheromones have been shown to be very effective in supporting behaviour management in dogs and cats and we hope that an equine pheromone would prove equally useful.”

The survey will take 15 mins to complete and can be found at www.nottingham.ac.uk/vet/horseownersurvey.

How many times have you wished someone would invent something to stop horses kicking their stable doors?

Two horsey chaps in Surrey have come up with an ingenious device to do just that. They have developed a small, battery-operated gadget that fits on a stable door and squirts two thin jets of water upwards for 1sec.

One of the partners in Quitkick, former conditional jockey Owen Evans, told Horse & Hound: “The idea came from a friend of ours originally, and it’s taken about two years to perfect it.”

He continued: “I’ve been around horses all my life and it’s infuriating when they continually kick the door. But the best thing about this device is that it works when you’re not there to keep an eye on them.”

Quitkick only squirts water towards the horse when the door is kicked, rather than pushed or leant upon.

“It’s difficult legally to claim that it’s 100% effective, but no horse would ever stand there and have water squirted in its face,” he said. “We’ve sold about 80 devices so far and they’ve all been successful.”

Event rider Ken Spencer uses a Quitkick device on his yard in West Sussex.

“One horse I have is a real attention seeker and its owner bought a unit,” said Mr Spencer. “It worked like magic — it has done for all of them, without fail.”

The device costs around £180, and is fixed to the door using a screw-on plate that is sold separately.

“We recommend people buy a few plates so the unit can be moved around,” said Mr Evans. “It takes a day or two for a horse to learn, so they can also get wise to the fact that it’s not there again, so the odd ‘refresher’ is often needed!”

For details, visit www.quitkick.com

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Myth: “Giving horses a lump of rock salt may induce crib-biting”

Truth: No scientific evidence to back this up

Registered nutritionist Teresa Hollands says: “From a nutritional point of view, there is no reason why this should be true.”

Professor Christine Nichol, a professor of animal welfare, says: “Having studied crib-biting a lot, I wouldn’t have thought that rock salt would be an original cause of the behaviour.

“Once a horse has started crib-biting, the behaviour becomes increasingly distant from whatever originally caused it, and an established crib-biter can be induced to crib-bite by feeding almost anything.

“We have increasing evidence that crib-biting is linked to nutritional factors, rather than boredom or stress, but I think it’s unlikely that rock salt would be an original cause.”

This formed part of a feature in Horse & Hound’s feeding special (13 October, ’05)

At this time of year, many horses spend longer periods stabled, so stereotypic behaviour such as weaving and crib biting becomes more prevalent. Researchers now say that traditional deterrents such as anti-weave grilles and cribbing collars can cause more harm than they prevent, so many owners look for alternatives.

Turning horses out as much as possible is recommended, and larger paddocks may be more beneficial. Professor Daniel Mills, a vet and specialist in animal behaviour at the University of Lincoln, says that reduced exercise may be linked to weaving and box walking, and that horses kept in paddocks of less than 1.5 hectares do not show the full range of equine social behaviour.

Ad lib forage is often recommended for stabled horses. Prof Mills also suggests putting “feeding stations” around the box instead of feeding in one place every day. Food balls encourage the horse to spend more time foraging and stable mirrors can help when it is not possible to provide grilles, allowing contact between horses in adjacent stables.

“Mirrors seem to be more effective with box walking than weaving,” says Dr Mills.

Experiments at the university have also shown that large posters of horses can also have a calming effect.

Although we don’t know what causes crib biting, there may be a link to acids in the stomach, and antacid supplements are now available. Tolerance may also pay dividends: Cheryl Gilson, who describes her crib biting Thoroughbred as “a typical neurotic ex-flat racehorse,” found a sympathetic livery yard owner who did not insist on isolating her horse or stipulating that he wore a collar.

“Cutting a section from an old tyre and fastening it across the door prevents damage to it and his teeth,” she says. “When he isn’t physically prevented from cribbing, he actually does it less.”

Weavers and box walkers can put strain on their limbs.

“Put an opening at the back of the stable to give the horse a wider view and use rubber matting,” advises Jane Doughty, who buys horses out of training to reschool and sell.

Rubber matting on the floor and coconut matting on the door are Jane’s tips for horses that paw the ground and bang the door.

“If banging and scraping doesn’t make a noise, they’ll often stop,” she finds.

Kelly Watts bought a six-year-old warmblood as a potential show jumper and was told that he weaved badly. She decided that because he did the job she wanted she thought she could put up with what he did in his spare time. However, she found the answer by accident.

“We bought a few chickens and let them wander round the yard in the daytime,” she says. “He seems to enjoy watching them scratching about and now only weaves when he sees you bringing his food.”

This tricks of the trade feature was first published in Horse & Hound (25 November, ’04)

Although often unavoidable, it is not natural for horses to be kept in an enclosed space away from their companions. Some horses are more anxious in the stable than others and it is recognised that most stable vices are a response to management problems.

Cribbing and windsucking seem to relate, at least in part, to a diet of concentrates, while weaving, box-walking and head-nodding occur when the horse is frustrated. It is estimated that around 20,000 horses in the UK weave and 10,000 box-walk. It is still not known how many suffer from other forms of separation distress.

Researchers at the University of Lincoln have been investigating ways of improving the housing of horses for several years. Most recently the university undertook a year-long research project into whether mirrors can help reduce separation anxiety. The research has proven that, when used appropriately, many horses can benefit enormously from this simple intervention.

Initial responses to the mirror

Obviously, if the mirror is to work, the horse must show some interest in the reflection and although some may ignore it, most do not.

In trials, the initial response of horses faced with the mirror varied enormously – some approached it and immediately nose-greeted their reflection, while others made a threat towards it at first. The trials found:

• Many horses are cautious when they first see the reflection and may nicker, and for some it can take a couple of weeks to completely accept and benefit from the reflection
• A small minority of horses respond more aggressively to the image and it is not recommended that the mirror be used these cases. The history of these animals usually shows that the horses are naturally unsociable or domineering
• While many owners report an immediate calming influence on their horse, others say the effect is more gradual, taking a month or more to work
• In a small number of cases, the initial comfort provided appears to wear off after a few months

It is important the mirror is positioned in the correct place, so the horse can choose whether to look at its reflection or not. Installing a reflective surface along the whole length of the stable wall is not recommended, as the horse cannot avoid its reflection and may be more stressed as a result.

Similarly, the mirror should not be placed so that the horse sees its reflection close up when feeding – especially on hard feed – as this could encourage aggression and protectiveness around the feed bowl.

The best location for the mirror is just inside the stable door, away from any feeding stations.

Many owners have used the mirror to help reduce stable anxiety, and success has also been reported with horses that suffer from separation anxiety. A typical candidate might be a horse that spends a lot of time in the field, but which becomes agitated when stabled or those which react badly when a close companion is taken away.

A number of owners have also found unexpected secondary effects; for example, one mare that is normally quite noisy when in season was reportedly much calmer once the mirror was installed.

Other owners have observed that their horse’s temperament improved and several owners have said that with the mirror in the stable, their horse is also much easier to tack or rug up. All these reports deserve further investigation.

Several people have used a mirror to help manage a horse on long-term box rest and believe that it helped the horse cope with the confinement. It is also possible that the mirror might reduce the stress of individual box weaning.

The research has found that a mirror is a genuine aid to the management of the stress that can arise when a social animal is restricted from close interaction with others of its kind.

• Vet Dr Daniel Mills BVSc PhD ILTM MRCVS has a PhD in the development of welfare-orientated treatment strategies for equine behavioural problems. He is principal lecturer in behavioural studies and animal welfare at the University of Lincoln and also lectures internationally on equine behaviour and its management.
• This feature was originally published in the April 2004 issue of HORSE magazine. Don’t miss the May issue of HORSE, which is out in the shops tomorrow (1 April), for the chance to win a saddle worth £1,395 plus a one-to-one training session with the current British Open Champion, Robert Whitaker.

With any stable “vice”, such as crib biting andwindsucking, prevention is always better than cure. This can be achieved by emulating the diet of our horses’ ancestors that roamed the plains as trickle feeders.

A few simple guidelines can be followed to minimise the strain on the horse:

1. Provide as little hard feed as possible and supply it in several feeds throughout the day. Alternatively, you could use a foraging device in the stable. These stable toys release the hard feed over an extended period of time and, in some cases, may help reduce cribbing by steadying the flow of concentrate into the stomach. However, some horses are extremely frustrated by such devices and only become worse, so you must monitor your own horse’s response carefully.

2. If extraenergy is needed, ensure it comes from fat in the diet rather than starch, as this reduces acidity during digestion.

3. Allow as much access to forage or grazing as possible – stabled horses can still trickle feed on hay or haylage.

4. Try to make sure your horse is without feed for as little time as possible. Obviously, the general rule of not feeding just prior to exercise still holds, so use common sense.

Horses most at risk

Although Thoroughbreds, warmbloods and Standardbreds are at a higher risk, any breed is susceptible to both cribbing and ulcers, particularly:

• those with a lack of forage and shorter time spent feeding
• those on bedding other than straw
• those being fed concentrates other than at low levels

This feature was first published in Horse magazine

Few sport and leisure horses have the luxury of living life as natureintended — instead the needs of their riders result in their confinement to a stable for hours on end, eating cereals rather than grass and enjoying limited exercise.

By allowing your horse to carry out natural behaviour even when confined, however, you can curb stress and boredom levels and reduce the likelihood that he will develop stable vices.

Here are some top tips to keep your horse happy and relaxed from animal welfare charity, The Blue Cross.

Top tips for happyhorses

• Turn out your horse with a companion as often as possible – even an hour a day in a sand school is worthwhile.
• If you have access to a barn or large stable, use it for your horse and his companion to give them a chance to groom and play. Slowly increase the time they are together – 10 minutes is enough to begin with – and then gradually introduce them to smaller spaces.
• If possible, stable your horse next to his friend, or another horse he gets on with, so they can see and touch each other. Even better, lower the internal stable partition or cut a hole in it, enabling both horses to groom each other through the gap. This is an excellent way of reducing stress.
• Provide freedom of movement and choice by creating a pen outside your horse’s stable so that he can choose to be inside or out. You may be surprised at how often he prefers to be outside.
• Invest in some stable toys to alleviate boredom or, with a little imagination, make them yourself: for example carrots, swedes and turnips can be tied from the ceiling with baler twine or horse and pony nuts or strips of carrot can be hidden in the bed.If your horse or pony has suffered from laminitis or is under veterinary care, you will need to contact your vet before using feed-based toys or anything else that may interfere with veterinary treatment.
• Provide plenty of hay at all times, especially at night, to encourage natural behaviours such as browsing and trickle feeding. Provide hay in a haynet with small holes so it takes your horse longer to eat and gives him a little challenge too.
• Don’t over-rug your horse – allow him to grow his own insulatingcoat. The more rugs you put on, the less he is able to regulate his temperature by himself. Heat can generate quickly, making him hot and sweaty during the night.
• Make sure your horse’s stable is big enough. He should be able to move around easily and lie flat without obstruction.
• Your horse’s stable should also be well ventilated, light and free from dust. Ideally there should be a window at the back to allow air to circulate. Don’t close the top door, as this will only make the stable stuffy and add to any feeling of claustrophobia.
• If your horse exhibits stereotypical behaviour, such as crib biting, don’t prevent it, as it is his way of dealing with a stressful situation. Anti-weave bars and crib collars will only increase his stress levels. Instead, try to identify and eliminate the cause of his anxiety.Reduce the time spent in the stable to a minimum, then gradually increase the amount of time he is kept in. If this doesn’t work, you may have to search for year-round turnout.

Stable vices are examples of “stereotypies” – sequences of repeated behaviour with no apparent purpose or function. They appear to originate from a need-related drive, which develops in an environment with inadequate opportunities for satisfying that need.

They illustrate a horse’s inability to cope and should, perhaps, be considered indicators of poor welfare rather than a vice. Once established, stereotypic behaviour may become a need in itself, a coping mechanism to dissipate anxiety.

Environmental issues

Steriotypies are variations on “normal” behaviour, developing as a result of a deficient environment, in which movement, diet, and social contact are restricted.A behavioural sequence consists of two phases:

• appetitive: the horse is motivated to perform an act (eg courtship) 
• consummatory: the act is completed, so eliminating the initial motivation (eg mating).

If the consummatory phase cannot be reached, the horse returns to the original sequence and begins again. Eventually, the initial behavioural act becomes a fixed pattern, which is refined further until it barely resembles normal behaviour.

Once established, stereotypies become almost impossible to eradicate, even if the original stress factors are addressed.

Contributing factors

A combination of genetics and environmental factors influence behaviour.

Genetics:

Horses can tolerate stress, frustration and boredom to a certain level, dependent on the genetic make-up of the individual, beyond which behavioural abnormalities may appear. While stable vices are not directly passed on, temperament and, therefore, the ability to deal with stress, is an inherited trait. Thus, stereotypies are linked with certain bloodlines and most horses showing one kind of vice will have relatives showing another.

Management:

This has the greatest influence on behaviour.

• Diet and feeding: a high concentrate, low volume, low roughage diet meets the nutritional needs faster than it satisfies the horse’s drive to carry out the physical act of eating, which can predispose it to oral-based stereotypies. Studies show an increased risk if less than 6-8 kg/day of forage is available. Daily grazing is essential.
• Insufficient socialstimulation: vices are most likely to happen when the horse is stabled in complete isolation, less likely with other horses in view only or where it can contact other horses, even less when it is kept with others in a barn and least likely to happen when the horse is kept with others at grass.
• Insufficient space/inadequate daily exercise: surveys show that endurance horses seldom crib, while dressage and racehorses do, as they spend more time confined. Stereotypies are rare in horses kept at grass.
• Pawing: when the horse can hear feed being prepared, or when a foal is prevented from suckling.
• Copycat behaviour: there is anecdotal “evidence” that horses copy vices from others, but this has never been supported scientifically. In fact, studies show that horses are almost unique in their ability not to be able to mimic their colleagues. It is more likely that the environmental inadequacies which cause one horse to develop a vice have the same effect on others.
• Early experiences: research is currently in progress to establish the effects of orphancy, mare rejection or aggression, early or abrupt weaning, subsequent handling and management and sudden changes in environment on future behavioural problems.

Early findings indicate that the age at weaning and weaning technique are paramount – up to 75% of potential stereotypers show symptoms within one month of weaning.

Dealing with vices

• Cribbing/windsucking: prevent thehorse from grasping surfaces or make it unpleasant by making them too wide or fixing guttering along them. Restrict the horse from arching its neck by:

a) feeding from the ground, since cribbing is often only done at feed times and the neck cannot be flexed when stretched down;

b) using anti-cribbing straps which cause discomfort when the neck is arched;

c) with surgery – but reports in The Veterinary Record question whether this is appropriate.

• Weaving: anti-weave frames stop the horse from swinging his neck – studies show that less weaving occurs on straw bedding.
• Management measures: if the horse has to be confined in its stable, you should ensure it is stimulated. Groom it several times daily; provide toys, such as horseballs, for unsupervised play; provide a friend, such as a goat.
• Medical methods: mood altering, anti-psychotic and sedative drugs have been used, but any improvement tends to be temporary. Certain drugsblock the “pleasurable” sensation, so removing the positive reinforcement effect, but they are expensive. L-trytophane is a natural substance found in grass hay, which seems to have a calming influence. Prozac has been used in America.
• Other: occasionally, a sudden change in diet can “jolt” a horse out of an early stereotype. It is also worth asking your vet to check that there are no physical causes of discomfort which could be a contributing factor, such as, skin, head, ear and eye pain.

Taking precautions

Given that, once established, stereotypies are almost impossible to reverse, particularly in older horses, and that their presence indicates stress, it is preferable to prevent them in the first place. This can be done by meeting the horse’s needs with good stable management.

• Reassess your weaning technique. Bristol University and Hartpury College are looking into the importance of this by following the progress of different groups of foals. They are comparing thoroughbred foals, destined to go into training at two years old, with future eventers, who are brought on much more slowly. Conclusions will be published next year.
• Raise your youngster to accept change andvariation as normal.
• Reassess management, maximising social contact, available stable area and grazing
• Increase the roughage content of the diet.
• Feed little and often, preferably from the ground, and spread it around – “stall grazing” – to imitate natural foraging.
• Learn to recognise the earliest signs of stress and undesirable behaviour in your horse and start dealing with it immediately.Thanks to Dr Christine Nicol, University of Bristol, and Amanda Waters, Hartpury College, for their help with this article.

Q: I own a Shetland pony who scrambles over the stable door when kept in. He is in a stable with a normal height door but still manages to get over it. I tried shutting the top door, but he then gets very anxious and calls out constantly. Please can you help?

Pony expert Patricia Hardcastle replies: It sounds like your pony is unhappy at being confined in a stable where he is unable to see other horses. You may find that his escapologist behaviour will reduce if he is able to see other horses from inside his stable.

You could try fixing a chain or webbing stall guard across the doorway so he can look out, although there is always the concern that a small leg might get trapped if he still tries to climb out, or that he might try to wriggle underneath!

Alternatively, you could build a smaller door on the inside of the main door or if the stables are your own consider cutting a smooth V shape into the door which would allow your pony to enjoy a view of the outside world.

Shetland ponies are designed to live in the harsh climate of the Shetland Isles, so try to give your little chap as much time in the field as possible and when stabled make sure he has adequate hay and some toys to keep him occupied.

Read more stabling advice:

• Avoiding stable fires
• Improving your horse’s stable
• Choosing the right bedding

Q: I have a 16-year-old 15hh Arab mare on loan. When she first came to me two years ago, she was a crib biter, but with plenty of turnout she seemed to stop.

Lately, however, she has started the habit again. She seems to be even worse than before and I am worried it may cause health problems. What can I try to get her out of this habit?

Liz Clemence replies: It is unclear why some horses are more prone to stable vices than others and, while it is possible to discourage crib biting, a total cure is rare and the horse will often start again when he feels stressed.

Many horses crib bite all their lives with few ill effects but it can cause digestive problems and, in some cases, weight loss or colic.

The incisor teeth sometimes wear unnaturally thin, and, in extreme cases, they may no longer meet correctly when the horse’s mouth is closed, making grazing difficult.

However, by establishing a good daily routine for your mare and with clever use of some of the following deterrents, you should be able to discourage her from crib biting.

Top tips to reduce cribbing

• Boredom or stress are often thought to be major factors in stable vices. If possible, turn your horse out by day to allow her the freedomto graze and play.
• Running a line of electric fencing along the top of your post and rail fencing or sectioning off an area of field with portable electric fencing will prevent her from having anything to grasp hold of in order to be able to crib bite.
• Avoid the possibility of vices being copied by keeping wind suckers and crib biters out of direct sight of other horses on the yard.
• You could put up a metal grid to prevent the horsecrib biting on the stable door. This does, however, have the negative effect of preventing the horse looking out over the stable door and increasing boredom.
• Consider trying your mare in a wind suck or crib bite collar. The collar works by causing discomfort when the horse attempts to arch his neck in order to suck in and swallow air, which helps prevent the vice.
• Remove any edges in the stable which your horse grabs when crib biting.
• Paint any areas which cannot be removed with a specially-made preparation that discourages crib biting. They can be easily obtained from most equestrian outlets.
• Relieve stable boredom by introducing toys to occupy your horse. Try smearing them with treacle or molasses, or attaching a favourite treats to add interest.
• If possible, split your horse’s daily hay ration into smaller but more frequent haynets, to keep her busy.

Make sure your horse is exercised regularly and sufficiently. Make her work interesting and varied.Read more about stable vices:

• Q&A: Cribbing alternatives
• Kicking the habit – weaving and crib-biting
• Beating box rest boredom

Q: My 15hh eight-year-old gelding has just started crib biting. This has started since I moved him to a new livery yard where there are lots of other horses. Previously, I kept him at home and he lived out all day and was brought in at night. However, because of work commitments I have had to put him on full livery.

At the new yard he only has four hours a day restricted grazing – could this have caused him to start crib biting? Does it indicate a medical condition and are there any alternative therapies I could try?

Tim Couzens replies: Stereotypic behaviour, such as crib biting, is usually a stress response to changes in management or environmental conditions. Typically, as in this case, the behaviour has been precipitated by a management change – moving the horse from a constant grazing situation with a companion, to a period of restricted grazing with long hours of stabling.

Stereotypic behaviour is monotonous and repetitive, with no apparent purpose and derives from an array of behaviour patterns within the horse’s normal repertoire, though the behaviour may be copied from one horse to another.

Such behaviour is slow to develop and it is sometimes possible to spot behavioural changes early on, particularly in young horses. Once the behavioural pattern has been established it is often difficult to reverse even though the original stress situation may have been removed.

Managing stress

Stress situations including boredom, frustration and constant fear can lead to a situationsimilar to depression.

Serotonin, the neurotransmitter responsible for making us feel happy, can become depleted under such conditions, particularly when there is a lack of the amino acid tryptophan which affects the uptake of serotonin and acts as a precursor for production of serotonin itself.

Preventing crib biting in the past involved the use of various gadgets including a cribbing collar.

The problem was also controlled by reducing the number of surfaces that the horse had to chew on by using grilles and painting surfaces with creosote. Although these measures may appear to stop the problem, they do nothing to address the underlying cause.

A better approach would be, where practical, to deal with any management problems and to provide more social contact, grazing time and distractions within the stable, such as hanging rubber balls or other toys.

Another approach, best used in conjunction with environmental enrichment, is to use complementary medicine.

Flower remedies, herbal remedies and homoeopathy have all proved useful in dealing with behavioural problems such as crib biting.

If you are using two different types of remedies together, for example a flower remedy and ahomoeopathic one, leave around fifteen minutes between treatments.

Flower remedies

Use no more than five remedies in combination and dose with five drops twice daily.

Try:

• St John’s wort, which will help relieve depression and stress – particularly environmental stress.
• Garlic and echinacea, which strengthen the immune system, often weakened by stress.
• Honeysuckle, which helps the horse let go of the past and relieves ‘homesickness’.
• Walnut, to help a horse adjust to new surroundings.
• Agrimony, for anxiety.
• Valerian, for stress.
• Snapdragon, specifically for crib biting.

Herbal remedies

There are a number of proprietary herbal remedies available either as dried mixes or tinctures diluted in cider vinegar.

Try ones which include valerian, skullcap, hops, vervain, chamomile and red poppy. All these herbs have a calming effect and will help to relieve your horse’s stress by reducing anxiety.

Homoeopathy

Homoeopathic treatments can be given either as tablets or powders twice daily. The ideal potency to use is 30c.

For crib biting, try:

• Lycopodium, for nervy horses who show digestive troubles and where boredom is the suspected cause.
• Argentum nitricum, where the horse seems agitated.
• Sepia, particularly for mares where irritability is a feature.
• Chamomile, to help calm a restless or irritable horse.

Read more about stable vices:

• New research into weaving cure
• Beating box rest boredom
• Understanding stable vices

Stable vices are examples of “stereotypies” – sequences of repeated behaviour with no apparent purpose or function.

Once established, stereotypic behaviour may become a need in itself, a coping mechanism to dissipate anxiety.

In the wild, horses spend about 70% of each day grazing, covering much ground, with the rest spent socialising, dozing or sleeping.

Domestication has put severe limits on the horse’s need to graze, move and interact, particularly with the stabled, corn-fed performance horse.

Stereotypies are variations on “normal” behaviour, developing as a result of a deficient environment, in which movement, diet, and social contact are restricted. A behavioural sequence consists of two phases:

• appetitive: the horse is motivated to perform an act (eg courtship)
• consummatory: the act is completed, so eliminating the initial motivation (eg mating). If the consummatory phase cannot be reached, the horse returns to the original sequence and begins again. Eventually, the initial behavioural act becomes a fixed pattern, which is refined further until it barely resembles normal behaviour.

Management has the greatest influence on behaviour.

Diet and feeding: a high concentrate, low volume, low roughage diet meets the nutritional needs faster than it satisfies the horse’s drive to carry out the physical act of eating, which can predispose it to oral-based stereotypies. Studies show an increased risk if less than 6-8 kg/day of forage is available. Daily grazing is essential.

Insufficient social stimulation: vices are most likely to happen when the horse is stabled in complete isolation, less likely with other horses in view only or where it can contact other horses, even less when it is kept with others in a barn and least likely to happen when the horse is kept with others at grass.

Insufficient space/inadequate daily exercise: surveys show that endurance horses seldom crib, while dressage and racehorses do, as they spend more time confined. Stereotypies are rare in horses kept at grass.

Pawing: when the horse can hear feed being prepared, or when a foal is prevented from suckling.

Copycat behaviour: there is anecdotal “evidence” that horses copy vices from others, but this has never been supported scientifically. In fact, studies show that horses are almost unique in their ability not to be able to mimic their colleagues. It is more likely that the environmental inadequacies which cause one horse to develop a vice have the same effect on others.

Early experiences: research is currently in progress to establish the effects of orphancy, mare rejection or aggression, early or abrupt weaning, subsequent handling and management and sudden changes in environment on future behavioural problems. Early findings indicate that the age at weaning and weaning technique are paramount – up to 75% of potential stereotypers show symptoms within one month of weaning.

Taking precautions

Once established, stereotypies arealmost impossible to reverse, particularly in older horses, and because their presence indicates stress, it is preferable to prevent them in the first place. This is where good stable management is essential.

• Reassess your weaning technique.
• Raise your youngster to accept change and variation as normal.
• Reassess management, maximising social contact, available stable area and grazing
• Increase the roughage content of the diet.
• Feed little and often, preferably from the ground, and spread it around – “stall grazing” – to imitate natural foraging.
• Learn to recognise the earliest signs of stress and undesirable behaviour in your horse and start dealing with it immediately.

Horse & Hound’s simple guide to the most common stable vices displayed by horses and ponies.

• Cribbing: the horse grasps a horizontal surface with its incisor teeth, flexes its neck and pulls back. It is often worse around meal times, since food is a stimulating factor. Apart from damage to the stable or fence, the incisors will erode causing dental disease and muscles under the neck will become over-developed. 
• Windsucking: the horse flexes its neck and makes a grunting noise as he takes in air. This is usually a continuation of cribbing, but is sometimes an isolated act. Recent endoscopic studies suggest that air is not swallowed into the stomach, but is held in the gullet, then released, making the term a misnomer. 
• Weaving: the horse swings its head and neck from side to side, usually over the stable door, shifting its weight from one limb to the other. 
• Box walking: the horse circles compulsively round the box for hours. Do not confuse this with the occasional pacing. If the horse weaves and box walks, it will spend less time eating, causing loss of condition; abnormal stress will be applied to the leg joints, increasing the riskof future lameness; the shoes will wear unevenly. 
• Stall kicking: the horse pounds its hind feet against the walls, causing trauma to the hock. 
• Self mutilation: particularly in the flank area.

Certain abnormal behaviours, such as wood chewing and biting and lashing out at humans, are termed “displacement” activities – they are not true stereotypes, although they may indicate stress.

Once an animal is established in any neurotic behaviour, it is very difficult or even impossible to eradicate, even if the horse is removed from the situation which prompted the original behaviour.

Therefore, it is vital to be able to recognise the early signs of any vice and stop it before the pattern becomes established.

The best treatment in the long run is to allow horses as far as possible to be as nature intended – running free in a social group.

Weaving and crib-biting

Weaving is usually a sign of boredom or anxiety. The animal rocks from side to side, normally over the stable door, which may cause excessive wear on the front feet.

A V-shaped grill on the door usually controls the behaviour.

Crib-Biting or wood chewing occurs in the stable and out in the field and seems to be a habit learned from other animals. It was thought by some to be a symptom of some nutritional deficiency, but this has mostly been discounted.

Control of the vice is aimed at reducing the surfaces on which the animal can chew. Remove the manger, for example, and place a metal strip along the open stable door. Cover any other surface with a non-toxic noxious material.

Q: I keep my 15.1hh 11-year-old British Warmblood gelding at a riding school on part livery.

He is very aggressive towards anyone who enters his stable or goes near him and he objects to being groomed, especially with a dandy brush. He has to wear a muzzle to stop him biting me when I groom him and there are bars on the stable door to stop him biting passers-by.

At feeding times he is even more aggressive.He goes out at night with other horses, is stabled during the day and exercised for an hour by the riding school and up to an hour-and-a-half by me each day.

His exercise includes schooling, jumping or hacking. I know he came from a quiet yard and was turned out 24 hours a day. I don’t want him to live out as he loses weight easily and needs to get plenty of bulk food.

I don’t think he bites out of spite. If I smack him he gets more aggressive – I think he does it because he’s afraid and defending himself or being territorial.

I compete him on a regular basis and he is very good natured to other horses and humans at shows.

We do well at shows and I don’t want to sell him. I don’t want to change yards either, because he’s very well cared for where he is. Please help.

A: It sounds as though your gelding is very stressed, which could be one of the main reasons he finds it hard to keep weight on. If you can help him to relax, hopefully he will be able to maintain his weight.

It would also appear that this stress has been going on for a while, so to change your horse will take time, patience and perseverance.

Horses tend to be claustrophobic and being in a stable is unnatural for them. It seems people in your horse’s space makehim anxious, so groom him outside to help break his habitual response.

Muzzling only helps to protect you and does not help cure the problem.

Your horse is not remonstrating for the sake of it when you groom him but is trying to tell you that he dislikes being groomed. You must start listening to him, learn his language and read the signs he gives you.

This dislike could be for one of two reasons:

• He is thin-skinned and grooming hurts. If this is the case don’t use a dandy brush. Invest in a soft-hair body brush or a soft mitt.
• He has so much stress locked up in his body that he cannot cope with the added pressure of grooming.

Horses don’t bite out of spite and I don’t believe it is aggression. Most horses bite people as a last resort, because we have not listened.

Watch out for the swish of the tail, the odd foot lifted or the anxiety lines above the eyes or under the nostrils.

There are relaxation solutions you could try.

First, take your horse into the yard in a headcollar and attach a leadrope to the near-side ring. Ask a friend to clip another leadrope to the off-side ring. Keeping your horse’s head in the middle (don’t keep the tension on) ask him to walk up and down the yard in between you both.

You should both position yourselves to the side and a little in front of your horse. While standing in this double lead position, take a schooling stick and wipe it all over his body imagining you are painting your horse a different colour.

This will stimulate latent neurological endings, giving him a different feeling, and helping to shift tension. It will also help to “ground” and calm him, as you go down the legs and gently tap on the hooves.

Then, I would suggest you “work” your horse’s ears. The ears house hundreds of acupuncture points and by massaging them we can use these energy channels to release tension, alleviate stress and help the body heal itself. Massage the base and work up the flute ending by rubbing the tip of the ear – an anti-stress point – with your thumb and forefinger.

Next work your horse’s mouth. This really does help biters and although it seems daunting for the owner, it is not too bad. Start by rubbing your index finger on the bars of the mouth (where there are no teeth!), then put your middle three middle fingers on top of the tongue and “play piano” on the tongue.

Insert your moistened index finger in between the gums and the top lip and rub from side to side. This has an incredible effect on the limbic system and is the emotional link to the brain.

At first your horse may object to this but if you persevere he will accept it and find relief.He may close his eyes, yawn and let out big sighs – signs the stress is shifting and your techniques are working.

It will take time but if you are patient you can change his behaviour.