Cribbing is notoriously difficult to eliminate completely, but a combination of dietary changes, environmental management, and physical deterrents can significantly reduce how often your horse does it. Understanding why horses crib in the first place is the key to choosing strategies that actually work, rather than wasting money on approaches that backfire.
Why Horses Crib in the First Place
Cribbing isn’t a bad habit your horse picked up out of boredom or spite. It’s a stereotypic behavior driven by real neurological changes. Horses that crib have roughly three times higher levels of natural opioids (beta-endorphins) in their blood compared to non-cribbers, along with lower levels of serotonin, a brain chemical tied to mood regulation. When a horse cribs, its heart rate drops and its pain sensitivity decreases, both signs that the behavior is genuinely reducing stress.
This means cribbing functions as a self-soothing mechanism. Your horse isn’t choosing to destroy fences for fun. Its brain chemistry has shifted in a way that makes the behavior feel necessary. That’s why punishing a cribbing horse or simply removing surfaces to bite rarely solves the problem on its own. The horse is still stressed, and you’ve just taken away its coping tool.
Start With Diet Changes
The single most impactful change many owners can make is shifting the ratio of forage to grain in their horse’s diet. Feeding concentrate to young horses immediately after weaning is associated with a four-fold increase in cribbing behavior. Even in established cribbers, cribbing rates spike after a grain meal. The more grain in the diet, the higher the risk.
If your horse cribs, work with your veterinarian or equine nutritionist to replace as much grain as possible with quality forage. Hay, pasture, and hay-based feeds keep the gut working the way it was designed to, with slow, continuous digestion that buffers stomach acid and keeps the horse occupied for longer periods. Some horses can move to an all-forage diet supplemented with a ration balancer for vitamins and minerals, eliminating concentrate meals entirely. For horses in heavy work that need more calories, spreading smaller grain meals across the day rather than feeding two large ones can help reduce post-meal cribbing spikes.
Increase Turnout and Social Contact
Horses evolved to spend most of their day moving and grazing in groups. Stall confinement with limited social interaction is one of the strongest environmental risk factors for stereotypic behaviors like cribbing. More time on pasture gives your horse the chance to graze naturally, move freely, and interact with other horses, all of which reduce the underlying stress that fuels the behavior.
If full-day turnout isn’t possible, even incremental increases help. Adding a few extra hours of pasture time, providing a stall with a window or opening to neighboring horses, or using a paddock with a companion can all chip away at cribbing frequency. The goal is reducing the boredom and social isolation that make a confined horse’s brain reach for its coping mechanism.
Don’t Isolate Your Horse
One of the most persistent myths in the horse world is that cribbing spreads from horse to horse, like a contagious bad habit. This assumption has never been confirmed in experimental or epidemiological studies. Horses do not learn to crib by watching other horses do it. Despite this, many barn managers isolate cribbing horses to “protect” the others, which actually worsens the problem by increasing the stress and loneliness that drive cribbing in the first place. Keep your cribber with its herd.
Cribbing Collars and Other Deterrents
Cribbing collars are the most widely used physical deterrent. They consist of two straps (one behind the ears, one behind the jaw) connected by a piece of metal or hard material that sits under the throat. When the horse tries to flex its neck to crib, the collar makes the motion uncomfortable enough to discourage it. Research shows these collars do significantly reduce cribbing, and studies have not found evidence of significant distress or a rebound effect (where the horse cribs more aggressively once the collar comes off).
That said, fit matters enormously. A collar that’s too tight causes tissue damage, skin sores, and muscle atrophy along the jaw and neck. A collar that’s too loose does nothing. The collar should be snug enough to engage when the horse arches its neck but loose enough to allow normal eating, drinking, and breathing. Check the fit regularly, and remove the collar periodically to inspect the skin underneath. Many owners use padded versions to reduce rubbing.
Collars treat the symptom, not the cause. They work best as one piece of a broader management plan that also addresses diet, environment, and stress. A horse wearing a cribbing collar 24/7 in a bare stall with two large grain meals a day will remain a stressed horse that wants to crib.
Coating Surfaces and Removing Targets
Some owners apply bitter-tasting anti-chew products to fences, stall doors, and other surfaces. These can discourage cribbing on specific objects, but determined cribbers often find alternative surfaces or learn to crib on their own legs. Electric fencing around the top rail of paddock fences is another common approach that protects the fence more than it changes the behavior. These methods are useful for reducing property damage but shouldn’t be your only strategy.
What About Gastric Ulcers?
For years, horse owners and some veterinarians assumed cribbing caused stomach ulcers, or that ulcers caused cribbing. The relationship turns out to be more nuanced. Research comparing cribbing horses kept on pasture to non-cribbers found no differences in the number or severity of ulcers, the prevalence of thickened stomach lining, or baseline stomach pH. However, cribbing horses did produce a stronger gastric acid response after eating grain, which could make them more vulnerable to ulcers under high-grain diets.
If your horse cribs and shows signs of gastric discomfort (poor appetite, weight loss, sensitivity around the girth area), it’s worth having your vet scope for ulcers. Treating ulcers won’t cure cribbing, but reducing gut discomfort may lower the horse’s overall stress level and take some of the drive out of the behavior.
Surgery Is Rarely Recommended
Surgical procedures for cribbing exist, the most well-known being the modified Forssell’s procedure, which involves cutting specific neck muscles and nerves used during cribbing. Results are poor. In one study of 10 horses, only three were completely cured, two improved, and five returned to cribbing after remission periods ranging from two weeks to six months. The researchers concluded the procedure can no longer be recommended, partly because surgery to eliminate a self-soothing behavior may actually increase stress for the animal. Surgical implants (metal rings placed in the mouth) have shown only temporary effects and are likely painful during placement.
Medications That Block the Reward
Because cribbing activates the brain’s opioid system, drugs that block opioid receptors can reduce cribbing to nearly zero within about 20 minutes of administration. In research settings, continuous delivery of these drugs prevented cribbing entirely for up to a week. The problem: cribbing resumed as soon as the medication cleared the horse’s system. These drugs are not practical for long-term daily use in horses and are not commercially available as a cribbing treatment. They’re mainly valuable for confirming that cribbing is a neurochemical behavior, not a training problem.
A Realistic Management Plan
Most horses that crib will continue to crib to some degree for life, especially if the behavior is well established. The realistic goal is reduction, not elimination. A strong management plan layers several approaches together: maximize forage and minimize grain, increase turnout and social contact, use a well-fitted cribbing collar when needed, and address any underlying sources of stress like ulcers, isolation, or inadequate movement.
Horses with a genetic predisposition are especially persistent cribbers. Researchers have identified several candidate genes related to dopamine, opioid, and serotonin receptors that may influence which horses develop cribbing under stress. If your horse started cribbing early in life despite good management, genetics may be playing a significant role, and your expectations should be adjusted toward management rather than cure.
The most effective approach treats cribbing as what it is: a stress response from an animal whose environment or diet isn’t meeting its biological needs. Every change you make to close that gap gives your horse less reason to reach for the behavior.