Conference noted::equitation

    I am sure that you will get many replies to this note with many
    different ideas but with the same premise, a wind-sucker is an
    annoyance! I have a 9 year old mare who windsucks and it has never
    bothered her nor have any other horses ever picked it up (thank
    heavens!) However, it drives me crazy!
    
    I tried everything including motor oil, creosote, tabasco sauce
    (she LOVED that stuff), and probably everything else in the free
    world. She just kept doing it. This horse was always turned out
    all day, ridden (everywhere) and trail ridden daily, paid atention
    to daily, etc. 
    
    Studies have shown that the action of windsucking actually causes
    an internal hormone to be released which is basically like a drug
    and the horse gets addicted to it. This was in an article in Equus
    last year some time and seems to explain why windsucking is such
    a hard habit to break. Maybe someone out there remembers which issue
    that article was in!
    
    Good luck with your barn!
    
    Linda
    

    re: .0
    
    You didn't mention whether the horse had a cribbing strap on or
    not....this will atleast help if it is tight enough.  I have had
    the best luck with the "nut cracker" variety.  
    
    It's a very annoying habit, and short of surgery, it's doubtful
    you will every cure it....no amount of punishment will help...it
    will probably just make him more nervous and head shy.  The good
    news is....like Linda's experience, my other horses never picked
    up the habit.
    
    Good luck...
    
    Jeannie

    If the stall is set up with dutch type doors where the top half
    is open, then it is easy for the horse to grab onto the edge
    of the door where he looks out.  However, if the stall is designed
    so the horse has nothing to grab with his teeth, then this may help
    the problem.  You can try putting bars up, close enough together
    so that he can't get his muzzle between them, or put up one of those
    web type stall guards so he can see out but not really get a hold
    of the door edge.  Make sure any wooden hay racks or other items
    are taken out of his stall - just leave him with his water bucket(s).

    
    My latest critter has this wonderful habit. I also use the nutcracker
    strap. No problems when on, but as soon as it comes off!!!!!!  I
    haven't seen other horses pick up windsucking, but I have seen them
    pick up cribbing.
    -Marianne-
    

    	I worked part time for a horse trader for about six years. He
    had boarders as well as his trade horses (transients). We had at
    least two long term boarders who were wind suckers,and none of the
    other boarders ever picked it up. Since this horse isn't yours,I'd
    suggest that you try to ignore the annoying behavior. Putting stuff
    on the door etc. ,although harmless in itself,could lead to all
    kinds of problems if the owner doesn't want you to do it. In these
    days of lawsuit happy people,you could find yourself in court on
    almost any sort of complaint,anything from trespass and conversion
    to attempting to poison the horse. I know that this sounds foolish,
    but stranger things have happened.
    	In any case,I don't think you have to worry about your horses
    following the example. In my experience,the other horses around
    the wind sucker,at first look at him the way we might look at someone
    with a nervous twitch,and then eventually they ignore him.
    
    	Good luck,
    		George
    

    First a question:  is there a difference between wind-sucking and
    cribbing?  Someone mentioned the two as if they were different.
    I always thought they were the same.
    
    I have hear of horses picking up cribbing from other horses, but
    we haven't had that problem, even though we have a horse that cribs.
    Our neighbors have a mare that cribs (and wears a strap) and several
    of her foals have picked up the habit from her.
    
    I got a strap for my horse as soon as she started the habit (it
    started when our other mare had her first foal).  My strap is shaped
    for bottom of the neck but is all leather and not a nutcracker type.
    She won't crib if she has it on, no matter how loose it is.  She
    will also wait for a while to start if you take the strap off. 
    She doesn't crib when she's out in the pasture since she's too busy
    eating grass, but horses that are really confirmed cribbers will
    crib instead of eating.
    
    When we boarded our horses, there was one horse in the barn that
    was really a confirmed cribber.  They took everything out of his
    stall and he started cribbing on his front leg!  Straps didn't work
    on him.  The only thing that did was a muzzle (when he didn't get
    it off!).
    
    Putting nasty tasting stuff on doors, etc. may stop a horse from
    chewing on them, but cribbers don't usually ingest any of it to
    really get put off by it.
    
    I would suggest putting a strap on the horse (or asking the owner
    to get one).  If anything else, it will keep you sane when you're
    in the barn.
    
    						Jan

    Cribbing is the fine art of chewing the wood from your stalls/doors/
    rabbit hutches/saddle racks, whatever the horse can get his cute
    little chompers on.  Windsucking is when the horse grabs hold of
    something and gulps in air. I don't know any better way to describe
    it, but it's strange!
    
    -M-
    

    Also, you really don't even need to buy a cribbing/wind-sucking
    strap because a stirrup leather works wonderfully!
    

	 My sister  is  now  the  keeper of the mare Linda Fox mentioned
     back  in .1 (?). A couple of things that helped deter her from wind
     sucking  were having *NO* surfaces that she could rest her teeth on
     in  her  stall.  She drank her water from a tub on the floor of her
     stall. She also ate from another tub on the floor. The stall she is
     in  now  has  1 concrete wall, t walls with no ridges. The 4th wall
     has  bars  on  the top half but the they don't come down low enough
     for  her  to  get a good grip on the edge. There is also metal that
     the  bars  are welded to and then this is what is against the wood.
     It's not that comfortable to crib on metal!! Nina now does not wear
     her  strap at all. When she's outside, she's too busy eating at the
     round bale in her pasture to try to windsuck on anything. (However,
     she is a trifle plump now!!!)

	 My sister's  horse used to windsuck only on his water bucket. I
     used to hang it just above the floor (I know the safety issues, but
     he  was  very  careful  and never got a leg caught). He only did it
     when 
     
    

    We had a TB that came off the track, and was a terrible windsucker.
    In the 2 years we had her, none of the other 13 horses picked up
    that habit, so it shouldn't be anything to worry about.  This horse
    was turned out with the rest of the herd in a 75 acre field, full
    of green grass, and would spend a good amount of the day standing
    at the gate windsucking!!  If you can get used to it, it shouldn't
    bother the horse (sometimes easier said than done!)
    
    Good luck
    
    Linda
    
    
    
    

Cribbers and wind suckers are often thought to be the same thing but
they're not really.  A cribber is a wood chewer, while a wind sucker
is a horse that locks onto something with its teeth, arches its neck
and gulps air.  There is another meaning of the term wind sucker which
means something entirely different.  (I don't care to decribe this one
in detail, but its the reason why racing mares often are "sewn").  
When people use the term "cribber" they are usually referring to a 
windsucker.  

As other noters have stated there is no known cure for this unsoundness.
You shouldn't try to punish the horse for doing it.  But you can make it
harder for them to windsuck by removing "edges" from their stall, using a 
muzzle, or crib strap.   They will windsuck on and break salt licks, buckets, 
and hayracks.  So you need to mount all buckets at floor level, place a salt
lick in their feed tub, and use a haynet or throw hay loose on the floor.  

I've used electric fencing on top of each railing of my fence
to prevent a horse from windsucking in a paddock.  Also, I've topped the 
bottom half of a dutch door with electric fence so I could open the top half
and let the horse look outside of his stall.  

One warning for crib straps:  They can cause an artery to "harden" under
their throat which may cause an adema (sp?) and possibly a blood clot
(which could kill them).  It's rare, but I've seen the warning signs
and had to remove the crib strap permanently.

I've heard of a new contraption for windsuckers... something developed at
UCONN?  I mean to check into it... Does anyone know about it?


melinda

    Thanx for all the replies. I now realize there may be no cure  and
    I'm not as worried about passing the habit around as I was. But
    I did hear and read the one comment to possibly control it. The
    fence idea may work for I've seen the horse get zapped a few times
    and now, he stays a good five feet from any wire that resembles
    his experience. I will try the fence on edges idea but I was just
    a little concerned about the nails. I will have to think of some
    way to attach the wire (it will be dead of power first) without
    leaving a sharp point from nail heads. If he learns the fence wire
    is dead, then on goes the power, but again, my concern is he'll
    jump ten feet straight up I'm sure, and come down on a nasty object.
    
    We'll see what happens this weekend.
    
    Another concern is he is pretty free with his teeth as I've noticed.
    He has this game he tries to play with our other two horses and
    I'm not sure I like it!!! It seems to be a game of trying to bite
    our horse on the neck, pulling halters and so on. He has bit the
    fur of my horse in two places. Now this horse has our two doing
    it against each other. Last night this horse tried it again with
    my horse and they both went for it at the same time. I heard a loud
    clash of teeth and thought I should see what became of it. Well
    as I thought, it was teeth because my horse now has two teeth chipped
    in the front. For thoughs of you who saw Blazing Saddles, I'm on
    the edge of dropping this new guy to the ground with one good punch.
    It's like a new car when people open doors against your new paint,
    no matter what you try to do to keep it clean, something happens
    again. I don't know what is up with this high strung animal, but
    something has got to give soon or a recommendation to Kenelration 
    will be made!!!   If anyone has an idea on how to bring this nasty
    game to a halt other than isolation, I would like to know???
    
    Thanx guys for the help so far. I needed that>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    

	 Regarding how  to  attach  the  wire - how about using electric
     fence  insulators.  Even  if you nail them to the wood and make the
     nailhead  flush  with  the top of insulator, it's still possible to
     pry them up with your standard hammer.

	 Regarding the roughhousing in the pasture - can you either turn
     them  out  in separate paddocks or turn them out at different times
     of  the  day?  Do you have a babysitter pony/horse who is immune to
     his  antics  that you can put him out with? He sounds like a bratty
     kid who's been cooped up for a while!

	 Note: 'Halter  Tag'  is  a  game  many  horses play if they are
     turned  out  within reach of each other. The only way to stop it is
     to have only one who wants to play (and other more dominant animals
     who  won't  tolerate  the antics). Is there enough grass/hay in the
     pasture to give them another activity to occupy their minds?

	Things may also quiet down after a week or so......

    I won't comment much on the cribbing since everyone else that replied
    has done a good job of that.  We use a throat latch sweat as a cribbing
    strap and it has had moderate success.  As far as one horse chewing
    on another, this is a pretty natural reaction.  It is very common
    for one horse to chew on the others wither, while the other horse
    does the same (hence the saying, you scratch my back and I'll scratch
    yours).  They often also play (sometimes pretty roughly) be chewing
    at each others necks, croup, and etc.  Sometimes the chewee is not
    as happy about this play as the chewer is.  As long as they don't
    draw serious blood, I wouldn't worry about it unless you don't want
    to have the others marked up.  In that case the only solution I've
    found is segregation.
    
    Regards,
    
    Bob
    

    	A point of interest,,you mentioned that this horse bites at
    your horse's halter. Do you turn them out with halters on?? This
    is EXTREMELY dangerous,especially if they're unsupervised. I nearly
    lost an Appaloosa stud this way. The owner of the barn I boarded
    at required that the halters be left on when they were turned out,
    and I complied,although against my better judgement. Sure enough,
    one day,Dante reached through the fence for a choice tidbit,and
    hung his halter on a piece of pipe on the other side of the fence.
    He must have puled back awfully hard,because when we got to the
    barn,we found the broken halter on the piece of pipe,the ground
    around the area all torn up,and Dante had blood all over his head
    and neck. Luckily,aside from some bad burns from the halter,and
    some relatively minor cuts,he was alright. Thank God that the halter
    broke. Now that we have our own place,no halters are allowed on
    turned out horses. Lord knows,they can get into enough trouble on
    their own without inviting it.
    
    	Just a word of warning,
    		George
    

re .15

The other side of the coin says:

Keep halters on in the event of an emergency (fire, broken fence and horses
running all over the neighborhood, etc., etc.), so you can catch them more
easily.  And ofcourse, make sure the halter is fitted properly and remove
all potential hazards from the area.  

But I keep their halters off too, for the same reason you do, and also to
prevent halter chafing.   

Melinda

    Just to my 2 cents; We never turn out horses unattended with halters
    because of the danger of hanging up, hoofs being caught, temptation
    to play halter tag, and etc.  I don't personally find any value
    to leaving them on in case of their breaking out because in my
    experience of catching loose horses, I've never found it an advantage.
    Our horses are much more tolerent of someone walking up to their
    shoulder than they are someone walking toward their head.  When
    I'm at their shoulder I can put a rope over their necks relatively
    easily.  I've done this first even when they had halters on.
    
    Regards,
    
    Bob
    
    P.S.  there are many pro's and con's in a note on this issue at
    the beginning of this file.
    

    As a solution to the turnout with or without halters, where I board,
    the owner uses a 'string' around the horse's neck.  The string is
    actually baling twine (not the plastic coated stuff), and you can
    use either a single or double strand.  You tie the twine around
    the horse's neck at the throatlatch area, making sure the string
    is not tight around the neck no matter what position the horse's head
    is in - a little more than a hand's with is good (like you use to
    check the tightness of a bridle throatlatch).  
    
    While you accustom the horse to the string you can leave his halter
    on, but practice leading him by the string and putting him on the
    crossties with it.  Most horses get used to it within a week, and
    that's all that they are turned out with, led around with, tied
    on cross ties with, etc.  The string definitely breaks with not
    too much force - if the horse suddenly pulls back on the cross ties
    or gets it caught on a branch, it will break (that's why we don't
    use the plastic coated ones).  The things to be aware of is that
    if it is too loose, it will fall off when the horse is grazing or
    eating hay from the ground - or it may fall over one ear and become
    too tight under the jaw.  Also, after a while of being through rain,
    mud, whatever, it may break on it's own or get too worn out and
    you need to make a new one.
    
    I think they are a good solution, and we haven't had a problem with
    them yet (yearlings through 20 year olds have them on).

    
    Wind sucking is where a horse will suck air without holding anything
    in its mouth.
    Crib biting is where a horse will wind suck while holding something
    in its mouth.
    Chewing wood is chewing wood and is generally a lack of vitamins
    or minerals (a salt lick normally cures it).
    
    I went to a lecture on Friday night by a lady who by training is
    a psychologist and whose hobby for the last 50 odd years has been
    horses.  During her talk on the psychology of the horse, the question
    of vices arose and wind sucking was mentioned. In her experiance
    some of her horses have been cured by changing their diets, I can't
    remember which food she recommended but I will try to find out.
    
    Mike. 

    	The biting game referred to is known as 'sabres'. It goes way
    back to wild ancestral days and is a tame way of keeping in shape
    for a possible fight or something like that. It's kind of the same
    deal as dogs circling before lying down.
    	I am referring to the action of teeth against teeth not halter
    tag or rump or wither biting which are something else. Horses will
    keep up this game of sabres indefinitely without tiring of it.
    	I would recommend separate turnout of your resident jerk.
    	Roger

    Hi there!
    
    I have in my hot little hands an article from the special edition
    of Horse Women #10 magazine put out by the editors of Horse and Rider
    magazine.  The article is titled The Cribbing "Junkie." It goes
    on to explain a surgical technique to "cure" habitual windsuckers.
    The procedure is called "modified Forssell's procedure" where the
    nerve of the left and right ventral branches spinal accesory nerve
    is removed along with 3 different muscles fo the throatlatch region.
    This seems to have a fairly high success rate ("20 of 35 horses were cured
    of their cribbing vice.  11 horses showed a reduction in frequency
    of the vice.  4 of the horses returned to crib-biting/windsucking
    with the same degree of intensity displayed before the surgery.)
    
    If anyone is interested in receiving a copy of this, let me know
    ERASER::REED and include your mailstop. I will try to get a copy
    out to you promptly.
    
    We have a windsucker at our barn too, although he doesn't seem to
    be spreading the vice to the other youngins'.
    
    As far as the aggressiveness, separate turnout times.  However you
    should see that he is not "herd-bound" or that can really drive
    you whacky with a frantic horse with "no-one" in sight. If you do
    have another that won't put up with his garbage, turn them out
    together.
    
    My horse used to be at a place where he was the only one to stand
    his ground with a very aggressive horse and he still got clumps
    of fur taken out occassionally.
    
    Good luck with the brat!
    
    Roslyn