Artemis wrote:
Also agree horse is bored and/or stressed. 

Personally, I'd consider it a red flag re: the experience of the BO that she thinks the chewing will lead to cribbing, and wants to put a cribbing collar on a horse that is NOT cribbing...

I'd agree with your sentiment on red flag and I have seen the OP's response that it was a knee jerk reaction having seen the damage done.  

But truth be told there are other red flags.   Horse isolated for just over a week???  What's that about??? It's clearly not quarantine ... so there's another red flag.

New horse on the premises but seems no "normal stuff" for an unknown horse.   Like stable doors with a metal top on.   Like a small fenced off area with a top wire.  Like something for it to do to avoid the risk of being stressed and bored because it's isolated.  Not realising even with hindsight that those are solutions .... so that is a red flag.

Thinking you stick a cribbing collar on a horse that doesn't crib.....   that's just ignorance.

Believe me I'm more than capable of having a knee jerk reaction if a horse comes to me and does untold damage which I might run the risk of having to pay for.  I've had one that kicked seven bells of shit out of a stable and a gate!   One that came complete with mites!   I've often said I'm passed being shocked by what I see but I never fail to be astonished!

I also had a young pony that came here that cribbed and that the owner never saw fit to tell me about in advance.   Even though it was brand new and had plenty to see and my horses were all neighing to it, the very second it was put into it's stable it tried to latch on to a metal topped door.   That was more or less the same time that the owner handed over a cribbing collar with the rest of it's gear.   My knee jerk was after I'd seen it still trying to crib with the collar on, to consider immediately telling her that I didn't want it here and to take it away.   I did reconsider in the blink of an eye and actually told her I never take cribbers and if I'd known it wouldn't be here and if she wanted it to stay then it would be conditional on being kept well away from where any horse of mine and with a small 1/2 acre paddock.  In the event tt was here for 2 weeks only while I started to put on some very basic training and then I phoned her and told her she was wasting her money and to take it away because it was one of the worst cribbers I'd ever seen and would it never be what she wanted it to be.       

It would never occur to me that a new horse just chewing wood needed to have a cribbing collar on it!    But then again it wouldn't have the opportunity to chew wood nor the inclination to be bored.    My knee jerk would be precisely as I said in my earlier post.

Last Edited By: Spooksandbolts Nov 22 13 4:04 AM. Edited 1 times.