Does Feed Taste Stimulate Cribbing?

By: Mark Andrews, Equine Science Update

Concentrate feeds have been linked to cribbing, but it is not known why, or which of their characteristics might be responsible. What is it about concentrate feed that stimulates cribbing?

Recent research suggests that taste could be a significant factor.

Julia Albright, working with colleagues at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, conducted a series of studies to investigate the relationship between sweet-tasting substances and cribbing. The research is reported in Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

The research team found that undiluted grain solution stimulated the most cribs, compared with all other solutions. It also tended to stimulate cribbing in the shortest time (significantly so when compared with diluted grain solution).

There was a lesser response when, in the second part of the study, they assessed the response when the solutions were passed directly into the stomach by a naso-gastric tube. This time, they found no statistical differences in the number of cribbing episodes between the solutions, although grain did tend to stimulate cribbing behavior more quickly than 10% fructose and 100% tap water.

So, taste appears to play an important role in stimulating cribbing.

The authors conclude: “These results confirm that highly palatable diets, possibly mediated through the opioid and dopaminergic systems, are one of the most potent inducers of cribbing behavior. The highly palatable taste remains the probable “cribogenic” factor of concentrated diet, although gastric and post-gastric effects cannot be excluded.”

For more details, see:

Does cribbing behavior in horses vary with dietary taste or direct gastric stimuli?

Julia Albright, Xiaocun Sun, Katherine Houpt,

Applied Animal Behaviour Science, (2017), 189,Pages 36-40

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2017.01.015.