Equine Dental Health

WHY DOES THE VET WANT TO LOOK IN A HORSES MOUTH? DENTAL EXAMS

Horses need quality dental care throughout their lives just as we do. Without appropriate dental care problems such as tooth root disease, problematic wolf teeth, gum disease, sharp points and cheek ulcers can arise. Ulcers are the most common preventable injury that frequently occur due to inadequate dental care.

These are exceptionally painful leading to altered chewing patterns that can progress to more serious disease. As the teeth wear down, they create sharp points and hooks. Removing these sharp points are referred to as floating. Sharp points are identified by veterinarians and are ground off under sedation with various tools. However, there is a lot more to a dental procedure than just floating as your veterinarian will examine every tooth for disease as well as examine movement of the jaw and in almost all horses. Due to extent of a dental exam, power floats and procedure, horses always benefit from sedation as the experience is not then associated with stress and fear. 

HOW OFTEN SHOULD I GET MY HORSES TEETH CHECKED?

Horses teeth continuously wear at a rate approximately 3-4mm a year depending on diet. Only that much? You could think that. Keep in mind that sharp points only need to be 3-4 mm in length to cause ulcers! Not only do they cause ulcers on the cheeks and tongue. Slight variations in the grinding surface in teeth will alter the way the horse chews. Left untreated these small changes can rapidly change over only a few years. Regular dental checks prevent such changes gaining momentum and help prevent future dental disease from developing. 

 Horses that do not receive regular dental check may develop major issues as they get older and likely will affect performance, even lifespan in some cases. Unfortunately, serious late stage dental disease often cannot be reversed, leading to expensive and lengthy tooth extractions. We recommend dental checks to start no later than 4 years of age, with annual rechecks. Sometime based on the dental health of individuals we will sometimes recommend a 6-monthly revisit. In advanced cases of dental disease, we may even suggest a 3-monthly revisit for a short time.