Stable vices are bad habits of horses and other equines. They often develop as a result of being confined in a stable with boredom, hunger, isolation, excess energy, or insufficient exercise. Vices are a management issue, not only leading to facility damage from chewing, kicking, and repetitive motion, but can also lead to health consequences for the animal.
Types Common stable vices classified as stereotypies include:
Wood chewing (lignophagia): Gnawing on wood out of hunger or boredom. This is not to be confused with the more serious vice, cribbing.
Cribbing, also called windsucking, is when a horse grabs a board or other surface with its teeth, arches its neck, and sucks in air. This can wear down the teeth and can lead to colic. Cribbing can be caused either by nervousness or boredom. It was previously thought to release endorphins in the horse, but recent research suggests this is a fallacy. Additional research suggests that cribbing increases salivation and may reduce stomach discomfort. There is a direct correlation between diet and cribbing; increasing hay in the ration or feeding more frequent meals appears to help. Cribbing occurs in 2–8% of horses, depending on breed and management. Weaving: Rocking back and forth in a repetitive fashion that is correlated to isolation or stall confinement, usually alleviated by pasture turnout. Possibly a self-stimulating behavior. Problems with weaving can include weight loss and uneven hoof wear, unnatural stress on the legs and lameness. Stall-walking or fence-walking: Like weaving, this is a repetitive movement, only the individual paces compulsively. It is usually correlated with isolation or anxiety while awaiting feed. This habit can also lead to weight loss and lameness. Pawing or digging: The horse may paw with its front feet. This can lead to abnormal hoof wear and lameness, and may also damage the flooring of the stall. A horse that paws can dig a noticeable hole in a dirt-floored barn in a very short time. Wall kicking: Kicking the walls of its stall with hind legs. This raises the potential of injury to the horse and damage to the barn. Usually this is caused by a lack of exercise and boredom. Wall-kicking is one habit that is often acquired by others in the barn once an individual starts doing it.l Vices not classed as stereotypies include:
Biting: A nervous or anxious horse may reach out of its stall to bite at passersby, humans or animals. Box stall designs that keep the horse from reaching its head out prevent harm to other animals, but some horses may attempt to bite a handler when the person enters the stall. Bolting food: Eating food too fast without adequate chewing. This can potentially lead to certain problems such as choking and colic. Bolting can be reduced by increasing roughage, adding bulky dry feeds such as hay or pellets in with grain feed, feeding smaller amounts more frequently, or by placing nonedible objects in the feed bucket as obstacles. Masturbation: A male horse, either a stallion or a gelding, will use his abdominal muscles to rhythmically bounce his penis against his belly. Previously believed to be a vice caused by boredom, confinement, or discomfort, masturbation by stallions and geldings is now viewed as a normal behavior. Horses may engage in a number of undesirable behaviors when being ridden or driven. These are not "stable" vices, but are often classified as "vices" in terms of being behavior that poses a danger to the animal or its handler. These include:
Head-shaking: Where a horse shakes its head repeatedly for no obvious reason, a condition with many possible causes from insect annoyance, dental problems, allergies, sun exposure or nerve damage. Bucking: May be misbehavior or a result of discomfort. Rearing: a normal behavior at play, but dangerous around humans, when it is often triggered by fear or pain. Bolting or running away: When a horse runs away, panicked, out of control, and usually very fast. The cause is usually a sudden fright. This can be very dangerous if a rider or carriage is involved. Other equine behaviors that may arise from boredom or frustration, but still present management challenges include destruction of buckets, mangers, and feed tubs; defecation in the manger or water bucket; dumping water buckets; sloshing feed in water and then scattering it on the ground, and so on. There is little that can be done to stop these and they present few health or safety concerns, other than hygienic considerations.
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