How early management decisions in foal and young horse life prevent the development of stereotypic behaviors like cribbing and weaving.
Stereotypic behavior development in horses is a welfare failure that is largely preventable through appropriate early life management. The management practices that cause stereotypies - abrupt weaning, social isolation, restricted forage access, and excessive confinement - are all avoidable with appropriate care. The persistence of these practices, often for convenience rather than necessity, results in animals that cope with their management through self-reinforcing abnormal behavior for the remainder of their lives. Prevention is dramatically more achievable than cure - once stereotypies are established, they are permanent features of a horse's behavioral repertoire regardless of subsequent management improvement. This makes early life welfare management an investment with lifetime consequences.