Oral stereotypies in horses including crib-biting, wood-chewing and wind-sucking indicate environmental deficiency and cause physical welfare problems, requiring management rather than suppression.
Oral stereotypy welfare management requires understanding that these behaviours are coping mechanisms, not bad habits or vices. A horse that cribs is expressing inadequate foraging opportunity, social isolation or gastric discomfort - the stereotypy provides temporary relief from the negative state. Preventing the behaviour without addressing its cause is the worst welfare outcome - the horse continues to experience the negative state without the coping mechanism. Management that provides ad libitum forage access, appropriate social contact, increased turnout and gastric ulcer management reduces stereotypy expression by reducing the underlying welfare deficit. Horses with established stereotypies may continue to show them even when conditions improve - these behaviours can become neurologically entrenched.