STABLING & VICES

This is a large subject to cover and I hope I manage to cover all aspects of it.

The first thing I'm concerned about is the stable itself. It's a very unnatural place to put a horse and no wonder they get vices. Looseboxes, which most UK stabling establishments offer are basically boxes of betwen 12' x 10' (3.7m x 3.1m) for a horse under 16hh and 14' x 12' (4.2m x 3.7m) for over 16hh. Go and mark out these measurements and just see how small it is. With the walls up it is without a doubt a cage. The American Barn system has rows of looseboxes facing each other across an 8' - 12' passage. No outside world to view, no watching of the seasons or day and night. And then there are stalls. These are individually partitioned stables in which the horse is permanently tied up, facing a blank wall. Now I may be over sensitive but just go and try this yourself. With most horses not getting out very often they may be looking at this wall, or stuck in this cage for up to 24 hours. If we put dogs in cages with the same ration of space the officials would do something about it. If a person was in a prison cell with these proportional dimensions, again the authorities would do something about it. Why then does nobody do anything about horses?

I guess it's the place most people are used to seeing horses and take it as normal. IT IS NOT NORMAL! A horse should be running free with others of it's kind. A horse should be in as natural an environment as possible and this rules out the stable. The only way to have horses out of really harsh weather, be it sunshine or rain is for our fields to be set up better. For trees to flourish in groups and/or for large barns to be made available so that the horses can be a herd inside them as they are outside. Yes, once again I know it's difficult, your horse gets dirty, it takes longer to get him ready to go out hacking etc. But once again, it's all just convenient for us, the human. Let's think about what our horses would really like and thrive on.

We have to stop putting human concerns onto our horses. We don't like getting wet, horses on the other hand seem to have no problem with it and if kept outside all the time and not over-groomed, their coats are very well waterproofed and after a good rain the dust and other things which we try to groom off them seems to dissapear. The only thing horses hate and is bad for them is to be thoroughly soaked and then to freeze, this should be avoided at all costs. We also don't care much for wind and cold although I know most horses get friskier when it is windy and very sluggish in the Summer. We mostly like to sunbathe, horses like to be cool. So, grass kept horses outside 12 months of the year keep themselves warm and dry if given the opportunity. They grow enormously thick coats with waterproofing. They're very good at finding natural shelter, we just need to make it available. We also need to feed them good roughage throughout the Winter. In the wild a horse will travel many miles to get forage and water and only the fit survive. We want to help our horses as much as we can without making them human. I've never seen a farmer worrying over his cows or sheep getting wet and unless the horse is very fragile then we should stop over worrying about our horses. Don't pamper them, just treat them like horses and let them be as natural as possible.

Now, onto the subject of 'vices'. Most vices are the result of human interference. Think about it! Horses weave, because we put them in cages called stables and they want to be out with their friends. Horses crib-bite because we restrict their feed intake, they're stabled alone and they get bored and stressed. Horses kick stables usually because of the horse in the next stall. Horses, like us, have favourite friends and also others they care not to be next to. Horses are very sensitive and once again most are well behaved and natural when left in fields with their friends and handled carefully and kindly. The horse that is labled a problem has usually had a problem with a human handling them badly, the fault I'm afraid is usually the human.

I've seen horses that windsuck and crib bite put into an anti-crib biting strap, which is half metal and half leather. It is strapped tightly up into the gullet of the troat and prevents the horse arching his neck and so prevents him from doing the so called vice. Most horses that start these vices do so from the stable. They're bored witless and being an intelligent animal they do these things to escape boredom. Wind sucking releases endorphins which help with pain caused by boredom. I have seen horses do these things in fields but usually it starts in the stable and becomes addictive to them. To then put on a device around the horses neck to STOP it compensating for being bored to death is doubley cruel and heartless. The vices are relieving him of the pain he is suffering, to take away that relief is like giving someone a severe headache and then not letting them have an asprin.

Recent studies have shown that the main reason for cribbing is acid in the stomach. Because horses are built to be trickle feeders, eating little and often, up to 20 hours a day, when we stable them or put them on bare paddocks and then feed them mostly concentrates the acid builds up to where ulcers start. As well as causing gastric acid to build up, our feeding regimes diminish the chances of the acid being neutralised, the horse needs to chew to activate these neutralising effects on it's stomach. There is a specially made antacid for horses made by Feedmark called Settelex which has been known to help but remember an antacid is not a full remedy, the only way to help acid is to help your horse have a more natural lifestyle with plenty of forage. I know we don't like these vices, they cause us guilt and we try to overcome it by not allowing it; but think of the horse, he's in pain and would be better outside running in the wind with his friends, playing and having fun, eating when he wants, what he wants, lying down in the mud and generally being a horse and you not only stop him doing that by putting him in a cage, you then force him stop his annoying habit because you don't like to see him doing it, and your remedy actually makes your horse and his vice much worse. A human in the same situation would do similar things, pace the floor, start talking to himself and having general obsessive behaviour patterns. Given a gun he may shoot himself.

No matter what the vice there is a solution. Most horses just want to be natural. Put youself in your horse's place and ask yourself, "am I happy in my present circumstances?" Lets face it horses were never really intended to have humans on their backs, they have given their all to us humans, helped us win wars, sow and harvest crops, pulled heavy laden carts and more throughout the centuries. Now we have the car, they're disposable! Unfortunatley, work and school take up week days and the horse remains a weekend pursuit. This places greater demands on a horse that has been alone all week and is expected to perform well in simple riding as well as competitions and shows.