Why do horses chew on wood?

Answer 1

Do you mean wood chewing or cribbing?

Chewing can be a dietary deficiency or boredom habit. Talk to your vet about diet. Give him things to do. You can also paint products like QUITT on wood to discourage the chewing.

Cribbing is a vice that produces endorphins. Your best bet is to reduce stress as much as possible, and increate turnout.

Answer 2

WOOD CHEWING and CRIBBING are two different habits.
Wood chewing is most often caused by boredom. Try increasing turnout, horse toys, or even putting a window in the back of the stall. In other cases it is caused by a lack of dietary supplements. Try putting some loose minerals in his/her feeder once a week. Horses are born grazers; which means their body is built to have a slow intake of food all day. Try feeding a flake of filler hay at noon; or break up his/her normal ration to 3-4 times daily.
Cribbing or wind-sucking (releases endorphins in the brain which causes a feeling of pleasure) is caused by a variety of reasons. Once a horse starts cribbing it is almost impossible to get them to stop. The best devices to use are a Miracle Collar or a grazing muzzle; both allow the horse to drink freely during the day. Cribbing is caused by boredom, nervousness (high tempered or hot horses will often have a higher chance of becoming a cribber in an unpleasing environment), or even breeding (if a sibling or one of the parents was a cribber then the higher the percentage that the horse may become one).

Answer 3

Wood chewing might be a sign of ulcers, as well as boredome or simply a bad habit as others have mentioned. Your vet can scope for ulcers.

For what its' worth, the supplement "Quitt" is a total waste of money. Had 3 horses on it at a farm I managed. They kept right on a-chewin'!

If it's cribbing, the Miracle Collar is the best, most humane cribbing deterrant I know of. But the best preventative is to put 'em somewhere they can't access wood... run an electric wire along the fence, cover all corners of the stall with metal or tires cut open & stapled flat.. and supply lots of more 'fun' stuff to occupy them: hay, stall balls, salt lick, a buddy, etc.

Good luck

Answer 4

BLAM!!! Here it is...


Hi,
Wood chewing or wood cribbing? I would need to know which you are referring too. Wood chewing is simply that; wood chewing.
Sometimes occurring in young horses similar to teething in humans.
Wood cribbing.- is always accompanied by stiff arching of the neck and sucking in air.
Checking with reference and veterinarian books. The habit is believed to be psychological related.
Factors involved in cribbing are believed to be related to boredom, especially those confined to stalls over long periods of time in too close of quarters, or could stem from nutritional deficiencies or even learning the habit from another horse.
The problem seems to be more with Thoroughbreds breeds, because these horses are in high condition and high strung, nervous types, needing lots of exercise to use up this high energy, and are often confined to a lonely stall.

Answer 5

you are talking about a horse kept in a stall, right? Usually boredom is the key. They do like to chew on something and the top of the stall is handy.

If the horse is chewing on wood out in the pasture, that is not out of boredom. None of my horses chew on wood, but everything else is fair game. They are kept in a pasture except for bad weather.

Answer 6

It is sometimes done out of boredom, other times it's from a lack of fiber. Try ading a hay higher in fiber to his/her diet and see if that works, if not, then it's boredom. Try working your horse more and buying the horse a horse toy like Jolly Ball or something like that to keep them entertained!

Good Luck!

Answer 7

This is called cradle biting, cribbing or wind sucking. It is a very bad habit caused by boredom. to stop your horse doing this try putting a foul (but not toxic) tasting solution on the area that they tend to bite, other wise get them out in the field more often.

Answer 8

It's called cribbing. It generally happens when a horse gets board. If you go to a tack store they will have many products to lessen this problem such as toys, cribbing collars, special supplements ect.

Answer 9

it could be wood chewing or cribbbing. ways to solve this are: cribbing collars but i don't recomend them they irritate the horse, and try putting a salt lick in his/her stall. it may be the horses way of trying to balance out it's diet. he/she may be trying to get something into his/her diet. uaually it's salt. and if it's just boredom then they will lick the salt lick instead. try to give him/her things to do and/or put him/her out to pasture more often.

Answer 10

Another possiblilty is your horse is missing nutrients. Try adding a salt or mineral block.