Many horses kept in unnatural environments and subjected to the stress of performance careers resort to repetitive behaviors (called stereotypies) such as cribbing, weaving, or stall walking.
Q: We have a disagreement in our barn: How do you best handle immediate discipline for a horse that strikes out with both front feet or cow-kicks and knows better (not a young horse)? Those people in our barn who have Western
Swiss researchers have released new data on risk factors and prevention measures for some of the greatest dangers to horses: other horses.
Anyone who has spent time on a farm with more than one horse could tell you that bites and kicks are
In the first study of its kind, researchers from the United Kingdom have discovered that cribbing horses learn differently than horses that don’t crib.
Cribbing is a stereotypy in which a horse grasps an object between his incisor teeth and
Acidosis (abnormally high acidity) in the hindgut (the large intestine and colon) can cause a number of problems in horses, including anorexia, colic, laminitis, and stereotypic (continuous, repetitive, and serving no purpose) behaviors such as
Is there a humane method for breaking my 4-year-old Missouri Fox Trotter mare from pawing?
I have a 16-year-old Tennessee Walking Horse who appears to be in perfect condition, except he belches. Often.
Q: We have an Arabian who, for some reason, has taken to chewing on the horse trailer when we are at a show. He has never done this before. He started gnawing on the fender. We tied him away from the fender, and he started chewing
Stalling–is it the best way to house your horse, a necessary evil, or something that should be avoided? As it turns out, there is no answer that will apply to all horses. Stalling is a common practice that has been used in the horse industry fo
We have a Quarter Horse mare whose mother was a bad flipper in the starting gate. She has two half-brothers that were also bad in the gate. All of these offspring were trained by different individuals. This spring, she had a filly that tried to fli
It is better–and easier–to prevent a horse from starting the habit of cribbing than it is to stop that habit.
In a web site advice column written by a veterinarian, he claimed that if a blacksmith trims or shoes a horse incorrectly so that the horse becomes lame within a couple of weeks of work, the horse will make the connection that the blacksmith was
A stable vice is an undesirable behavior shown by horses that are stall bound but also in pastures or small paddocks.
I have a client with a foal that was weaned a few days ago, and it has started cribbing. Within only a few hours after it was separated from the mare, it was seen doing something funny that the owners now appreciate was cribbing. Once they
We often punish horses for exhibiting undesirable stereotypic behaviors, but most of these behaviors are responses to suboptimal environments. Thus, punishing the horse for the behavior only increases the already heightened stress that caused
My 11-year-old daughter is having trouble with her pony nipping at her when she is girthing him, and when she goes to mount without an assistant. He also smacks his tail and pins his ears, almost looking like he might cow-kick at her sometimes.
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