Ulcers and cribbing?

Question

My horse's new stable mate is a serious cribber. I met her owners today and they are very nice people, and are very stressed by the constant cribbing. When the horse is not being tacked or groomed she wears the headstall cribbing device 24/7. When she is being tacked and groomed she is contantly cribbing. I told them I saw something on here about cribbing being casued by ulcers. Can anyone please point me in the right direction to get further info? They have had the horse 1 year and she is about 9 years old, 16.2 plus, and when she arrived pretty unthrifty looking. She is still a bit ribby but her coat has bloomed and she seems very happy. What is the correlation between cribbing and ulcers. How does the vet find out if a horse has ulcers? If you get the ulcers under control, do they stop cribbing? Any advice much appreciated and I will pass it alog to her. She is very interested and open to learning more about this! Thank you.

Answer 1

I read the same thing about ulcers and cribbing. I also read that the ulcers meds (ulcerguard or something like that was not necessarily the best thing either and that is probably what a veterinarian would do after checking the horse out with a scope.  When I am in doubt I can Caron at Blueridge or email her at the website www.bluerb.com. She is a certified nutritional consultant from American Academy of Nutrition and is like a walking encyclopedia.  I would bet that she could talk to the owners and get the horse some help.  It has to be than a bandaid - something that gets to the bottom of the problem.

Answer 2

i think cribbing is what leads to ulcers and colic. you should probably move your horse away from the cribber because it is "contagious", if one horse sees another doing it will start too. most horses never stop cribbing, its a bad habit. the horse bites on wood and sucks in air creating a high feeling. it cant be stopped, only minimized. Cribbing can also start when a horse is bored(b/c the owner doesnt ride brush it or do anything with him) or when he doesnt have anything to eat

Answer 3

the horse i used to lease cribbed a lot. we tried all the collors and halters. try butting toys all around the stall and where they groom. to try and keep her ocuupied. or use treats and give her them when she doesnt crib.

these are things to try and stop the cribbing

Answer 4

Yes there was a study done that they solved cribbing issues in 80% of the horses by giving them the equivalent of gastroguard. It was this one guy and his wife with a hunch and but their horse on a horsey equivalent dose of antacid. It worked so he contact a local research team, they did a trial and whoolah, now we know cure the ulcer cure the cribbing. My mare windsucks and I can't afford to keep her on ulcerguad etc, for ever but while she was on it, it did stop. I also feed her more alfafla it is higher in calcium and helps nutrilizes the acid. I feed her now like a ulcer horse and while she won't stop completely unless I give her prevacid or one of those, she cut WAYYYYY back. Succeed was good for to but again expensive. LOL why is all the stuff that is actually worth feeding so darn expensive?