Cribbing is one of the most common stereotypic behaviours in horses. Many studies have been made to show links between causes and potential function of these behaviours. Factors, which are crucial in the development of cribbing, include feeding and housing conditions, and some of the recent studies have shown also the possibility of the inheritance and the breed predispositions. Many researchers have suggested that one of the functions of cribbing is that it reduces stress, which is caused by modern housing systems or intensive training, and because of that we can consider it also as coping mechanism in horses which do not have optimal environment. We know that cribbing affects teeth erosion, colic and difficulty in gaining weight. Many owners want to stop this behaviour and different methods of controlling cribbing have been developed. If the hypothesis about reducing stress is correct, controlling cribbing, especially with physical and operative methods, without considering the causes, is of a great welfare concern. With interviewing 20 horse owners, we investigated how Slovenian owners of cribbing horses deal with the problem and compared this with the recommendations from the literature. We discovered that physical prevention of cribbing with a collar is more commonly used in Slovenia than finding the causes or changing housing conditions and feeding practices.
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