Welcome And Episode Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to the Animal Naturopathic Medicine Educatum podcast, specializing in canine, feline, and equine animal health from a biological perspective. Welcome to today's conversation about abnormal oral behaviors in horses. At some point you may have owned or met a horse that displays abnormal oral behaviors,

Common Abnormal Oral Behaviours

SPEAKER_00 0:45

such as excessive licking and chewing, it could be in their stable or in a yard, wind sucking, cribbing, weaving side to side, and possibly even eating their own bedding. These behaviors can reflect poor nutrition, housing and welfare, including unpleasant living conditions and chronic stress. Many studies show that the altering the diets of horses with abnormal

Diet, Boredom, And Redirected Behaviour

SPEAKER_00 1:15

oral behaviors by providing more forage can decrease the frequency of these behaviors and improve health. Researchers have defined redirected behaviors as the result of insufficient appropriate stimuli. So the behavior is redirected to an alternative stimuli. Boredom and or nutritional imbalance often leads a horse to things like wood chewing and windsucking, crib biting, all as examples of redirected behaviors in horses commonly fed low fiber diets. Many horse studies in the UK are seen to be comparing frequency of these behaviors in relation to diet changes, resulting in data clearly aligning behaviors being maintained in horses fed a high concentrated diet with low fibre and no pasture time, compared to decreasing behaviors in horses consuming a high forage grazing time, high fibre ration of hay, and smaller concentrated meals. The data concluded that the time spent on abnormal oral behaviors significantly decreased depending on the diet. Specifically those on high fibre roughage diets showed oral stereotype behaviors decreased by seventy percent. Whereas the horses that have been on low fibre, high concentrated diets with stabled conditions showed no improvement in their cribbing behaviors. In addition, cortisol, also known as the stress hormone, along with the hormones gretolin and leptin have been measured in these studies. This

Hormones, Stress, And Satiety

SPEAKER_00 3:30

is important as ghrelin regulates food intake and plays a role in stimulating hunger, and leptin is produced by white adipose tissue to create the sensation of saty. These studies also found that the average plasma cortisol and ghrelin levels decreased by thirty percent and twenty percent, and that was respectively in the high fiber diet groups. The leptin values increased by sixteen percent in the high fiber groups, contributing to more satiety in these horses with improvements in serotonin. According to the research, ghrelin and leptin changes supported the hypothesis that oral stereotypic behaviors appear to derive from failure in feeding motivation, stress coping mechanisms and the lack of saty. In other words, the high roughage ration provided longer saty compared to the high concentrated diet. This data is positive towards a diet that can influence behavior and hormone levels in horses. Ensuring horses have sufficient fibre roughage in their diet can therefore affect the overall digestive health and well being of horses that are suffering from stress-related mental to oral, nutritionally deprived stereotypic behaviors. It should also be noted that horses that display these abnormal oral behaviors all suffered from decreased antioxidant levels or increased oxidative stress. The reason I highlight

Oxidative Stress And Selenium Links

SPEAKER_00 5:36

this for you is because trace elements such as selenium, zinc, manganese and copper alongside vitamin E protect the body from oxidative stress. B group vitamins should also be considered to help hormone production to calm the nervous system. The most intriguing finding in these studies, I think, is that serum selenium concentration was significantly lower in cribbing horses, with the lowest levels measured whilst horses were actually crib biting. Alterations in serum selenium, an important component of the antioxidant system, may play a role in the pathophysiology of cribbing behavior in horses, adding further evidence to the theory that cribbing may be related to increased oxidative stress and alterations in essential trace elements from inappropriate feeding of low forage diets, especially as forage diets are higher in antioxidants than a concentrated diet, which in turn still supports the data results of high fibre diets being excellent preventative diets and also the biologically appropriate diet for horses in order to help combat these behaviours in domesticated horses. Strategies such as providing environmental enrichment tools, offering free choice hay andor prolonged grazing, and allowing direct visual contact andor prolonged turnout time in groups

Enrichment, Turnout, And Prevention

SPEAKER_00 7:30

to try and mimic a herd environment will provide the welfare and improve this for affected horses with abnormal mental to oral behaviors. In conclusion, but also just as important, prevention is key in horses not developing these behaviors. Humans should be enabling their young developing horses to exist as naturally close to their social and foraging needs for healthy development, from weaning through to performance. There has been no documentation of such stereotype behaviors in wild horse herds. Therefore these behaviors have been induced in horses via a human's decision to house and feed a horse in a non herbivore way, for human benefit, not for the horse's benefit. These practices within the performance, breeding, weaning and young horse training aspects of the horse industry are not audited enough. Whereas in zoos across the world any stereotype behaviours are frowned upon by the public, it is then up to the zoo to find ways to stimulate more of what would be the best and most normal enrichment for an animal in an enclosed environment. There is also no point discussing wing and sucking collars for horses either if the condition has already been established. It is up to the human to then do their best for the horse's health and enrichment. And so if we come back to the basis of this discussion, the feeding practices to ensure ongoing internal mental and physical health is the best it can possibly be. And of course remembering prevention in the first place is the best method for every domesticated horse. Hmm. Here you go, everyone. So I do hope that was helpful. It's good to see that there's uh research out there trying to make a difference, and so let's hope we can um we can continue to do so. Alright, everyone,

Final Takeaways And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 9:56

we'll catch you next time, and again, stay well and bye for now.