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 Veteran
Posts: 173
 
Location: Wyoming- where its always windy! | How do you tell? My mare seems to have turned into a beaver and has starting gnawing on her wooden fence posts in her pen. Only problem is I can't seem to catch her in the act. I try to give her turn out as much as possible but I only have a small turn out field and don't want to have it grazed down to nothing so it ends up being a few times a week. Her diet consists of grass/alfalfa mix hay twice a day and Progressive Ration balancer and alfalfa pellets once a day with 2 oz of Forco. I'm wondering if she possibly has ulcers but that's why I have her on the Forco as I was told it's supposed to help prevent them. She's not a hard keeper and always eats all of her meals. I've heard painting the posts w used motor oil will help but if she is truly cribbing I want to help fix it for her. Any ideas or suggestions? TIA |
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 You get what you give
Posts: 13030
  
Location: Texas | My cribber it's pretty obvious he is cribbing and not chewing wood. The wood chewers are the ones where I usually don't see them chewing but find the damage later. I also noticed more with my cribber that he picked a spot in his stall or pen and cribs on the same spot… the wood chewers seemed to just chew along the fence rail and the whole thing had chunks taken out. honestly the dang wood chewing horse has damaged more than my cribber has! |
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  Neat Freak
Posts: 11216
Location: Wonderful Wyoming | My father in laws corrals are wooden planks. Ours are used to being in pasture and when locked up sometimes chew from boredom. The used motor oil does work. I tried it years ago, never had one get sick either. We always have them on a round bale if they are locked in for any amount of time so they normally don't chew. I have never owned a cribber, but they say they more bite down and then start to suck in. Wood chewers just beaver your fences/barns etc. Both are a pain in the arse. Cribbers can be suffering from ulcers and curing those can help the cribbing so they say.
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 999
Location: Sunny So Cal | Not sure how long your horse has been on Forco but if it has been a couple weeks the horse should have stop cribbing if it had ulcers. You could try another ulcer product and see if that helps. But to me it sounds like you have a beaver. Mine chews when she is upset or bored. You don't usually catch chewers but you can almost always catch cribbers. |
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 Horsey Gene Carrier
Posts: 1888
Location: LaBelle, Florida | I have had 2 beavers and painting exposed wood surfaces with crib halt put a stop to it. It is very thin and goes on like water, comes in clear or brown, stinks to high heaven but stops the beaver tendancies.
Only have to repaint it on about every 2 years. |
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Expert
Posts: 3147
| I realize not everyone has the room or money to keep some form of grass hay in front of their horses 24/7, but I've never had a cribber/chewer who had adequate room and hay in front of them. |
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Expert
Posts: 1543
Location: MI | BMW - 2014-01-07 7:44 PM
I realize not everyone has the room or money to keep some form of grass hay in front of their horses 24/7, but I've never had a cribber/chewer who had adequate room and hay in front of them.
I invite you over to my house where an Arabian giraffe has eaten the top rail of our fence. (Grass round bale 24/7, buddy, and grained 2x/day). Grrrrrrrr. |
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You get what you give
Posts: 13030
Location: Texas | I have owned two cribbers and bought them as cribbers. No one has ever started cribbing from my place, but it's pretty much near impossible to truly stop cribbers from cribbing once it starts.
Thankfully the only one I own now prefers eating to cribbing so he will graze on pasture and not crib when turned out. |
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Expert
Posts: 3147
| Ridenrun4745 - 2014-01-07 8:00 PM
BMW - 2014-01-07 7:44 PM
I realize not everyone has the room or money to keep some form of grass hay in front of their horses 24/7, but I've never had a cribber/chewer who had adequate room and hay in front of them.
I invite you over to my house where an Arabian giraffe has eaten the top rail of our fence. (Grass round bale 24/7, buddy, and grained 2x/day ). Grrrrrrrr.
LOL. Exceptions to everything. |
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Sock Snob
Posts: 3021
| My cribbing mare has been on a grain free diet and gets turned out every day, but it was a little cool yesturday and left them up as i had to,go to town didnot know what time i would get back so left them up and when i got home thos 4 pads of hay long gone and was in the barn for over an hour did not hear the first cribbing noise. I learned she would stop when fed alfalfa but around here you cant buy it nobody grows it heck it is even hard to buy decent hay. But with hay pellets and cubes it is so easy now. The only grain is a ration balancer. I had horses this time a year chew wood i always assumed it was from bordem but it was more than likely a signal i was feeding too much grain which i never fed a lot but, my big gelding has thar soft eye like he did when he was on omeproizole. In 10 years we will know all that grain we where feeding was stupid. I do ad some type of fat suppliment. My big gelding as fat as a,pig. But he always was a hay eater. When i got him he was about 200 lbs underweight as a 2 yo i fed him what should be his maintance amount and 3 pads hay, then i would take a wheel barrow to my round bale and fill the wheelbarrow up and put in his stall, next mourning it would be gone, when i bought him as a 2yo he was 14.2 and he grew to 16.1. |
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