Best Friend Muzzles

Horses are known to exhibit a number of stereotypic behaviours. These include lateral swaying movement of the head and forequarters, wood chewing, weaving, head nodding, licking and circular route tracing. Windsucking or cribbing is a common oral behavioural stereotype. It occurs when the horse grasps a fixed object with its incisor teeth, arches its neck and sucks in air with an audible grunt. Cribbing should be distinguished from wood chewing in which wood is actually consumed and fence rails and barn walls must be replaced. Nevertheless, cribbing can wear down the horse’s teeth, overdevelop its neck muscles, and in some cases be associated with weight loss.