Anti-Cribbing Procedures for Horses

Cribbing is a habit some horses have, in which they clamp their front upper teeth on an immoveable object, arch their neck and gulp in air. They seldom chew the wood; that is a different vice - wood chewing. This vice has been compared to OCD in humans. I have read that in some rare cases cribbers will rest their chins on the fence or other solid object and use it to brace instead of their teeth. I've had a lot of cribbers in my thirty-plus years of horses but never have I seen one use its chin. But, apparently it is possible. I have also read some horses that cannot find anything to clamp their teeth onto will actually crib on there own knees.

Cribbing at best is annoying, and at worse can cause injury to the horse. It is possible for the horse to get a splinter inside its mouth from whatever wooden object they use. Cribbers will also wear their incisors down over the years. I once boarded an aged horse that had worn his teeth down to nubs by cribbing, but he did not seem to have any problem eating. I think the biggest danger is the horse pulling loose a board and hurting himself with it or nails in the board.

I have to say some of my favorite horses have cribbed. They never had colic as a result of it while I owned them. There has been controversy over that issue, with some thinking the horse will swallow the air and get gas colic. Most experts no longer believe this to be true.

There are some measures you can take to prevent a horse from cribbing. Several cribbing straps are on the market. I like using a jowl wrap, because it is less likely to rub the hair. The wrap or strap is adjusted around the neck at the throatlatch. When the horse cribs it feels pressure from the strap around its neck and that discourages the cribbing.

Another option is just to let he horse crib. Make sure the spot where the horse cribs (they usually have a favorite cribbing place) is sturdy enough to withstand it. Another cribber I once had was diverted from cribbing on his stall door to a pacifier, one of those horse toys that fit into the corner of the stall. He tried to get his teeth clamped onto the toy, but it just rolled every time he tried. So, he spent his stall time playing with the pacifier and didn't really crib very much.

There is surgery called a myectomy, surgically removing part of the muscle that controls movement of the throat, that can be done, but does not have a very good track record for being effective with only a 60% success rate, and then you've spent a lot of money for nothing.

Veterinarian, Dr. Kate Christensen, DVM, with Neuse River Veterinary Hospital in Wendell, North Carolina, practices an innovative procedure, which is the insertion of "cribbing rings" into the horse's gums to discourage cribbing. The new procedure is much less invasive than a myectomy, with an 80% success rate. The operation is simple: small rings, like those put in a pig's nose to prevent rooting, are inserted into the horse's gums between the upper incisors. The horse is sedated and twitched, the rings clamped in with ring pliers. It takes about ten minutes once the horse is tranquilized.

Dr. Christensen says there are no side effects to the gums or teeth. The rings do not interfere with eating or with carrying a bit. The horse will not crib as long as the rings stay in, but the down side is the rings sometimes come out in three to six weeks. If the rings come out there is no problem with repeating the procedure.

How it works is also simple. When the horse attempts to crib the rings put pressure on the gums, which is uncomfortable. Most horses stop trying to crib soon after the rings are put in. Dr. Christensen says that some veterinarians claim they have had horses stop cribbing all together even after the rings are removed. Cribbing rings are not a cure, but another option for controlling the vice of cribbing.