|  Why
Horses Need Dental Care
The
mouth is a performance horse's "steering wheel".
A horse with a balanced mouth, free of dental irritation and disease,
has "power steering"!
Regular
dental care removes irritating points and malocclusions, safeguarding
your horse's health and overall performance. It's also cost effective
- a horse with a healthy mouth needs less feed to get required nutrition.
Wouldn't
you like your ride to have "power steering"?
Equine
Dentition: The Horse's Teeth
Horses
have high-crowned, hypsodont teeth. Unlike adult human teeth, that remain
the same throughout life, adult equine teeth continue to grow and wear
down until the tooth wears out (20-30 years).
 A
horse's teeth pulverize fodder and crush grain with a side to side chewing
action. This lateral motion creates sharp edges (called points) and
irregular surfaces on the teeth. Points can be painful and may actually
cut the inside of the horse's cheek.
Before
we domesticated horses for our use, they spent 12-16 hours a day grazing
on coarse forage. Chewing forage necessitates wider lateral movement
than chewing the grain and pellets we feed our horses. As a result,
modern feed does not encourage the more regular tooth wear found in
wild horses.
Uneven
biting and chewing surfaces make it difficult for the horse to process
feed and get the nutrition it needs for optimum health and performance.
Incomplete chewing of feed leads to incomplete digestion and nutrient
absorption (and sometimes colic).
A
painful or unbalanced mouth makes the bit uncomfortable and leads to
performance problems and difficulty in riding or driving the horse.
Performance
Dentistry/Maintenance
Horses
need dental care throughout their lives. Regular
dental maintenance corrects problems before they jeopardize the
horse's health and performance.
Dental
care schedule:
- Foals
-
check early in life for normal dentition
-
correct problems such as overbite, underbite
- 2-6
years
-
horse replaces deciduous (baby) teeth with permanent teeth
-
up to 20 more permanent teeth erupt
-
check for and remove caps/cap fragments from baby teeth
-
remove wolf teeth
- Adults
-
need yearly dental care to maintain a balanced mouth
-
some horses may require twice yearly maintenance
-
monitor and correct wear problems, disease
-
emergency care (broken teeth, oral abrasions, abscesses, injuries)
- Geriatric
-
regular maintenance and balanced dentition add years to a horse's
life
Types
of Dental Problems
- Incisors
- overlong:
prevents molars from making contact to grind food
-
dorsal curvature (frowning incisors): abnormal wear forms a downward
curve in bite
-
ventral curvature (smiling incisors): abnormal wear forms an upward
curve in bite
-
brachygnathism (parrot mouth): misalignment of upper incisors
- the upper incisors overlap in front of the lower incisors when
mouth is closed
-
prognathism: misalignment of upper incisors that puts them behind
the lower incisors when mouth closes
- Molars
- overlong
(excessive crowns): prevents proper occlusion (contact) with opposing
molar for grinding food
-
hooks: form when improper contact makes the tooth wear more on
one side than another, forming a sharp hook in the enamel. Hooks
prevent proper chewing. Long hooks can actually pierce the horse's
gum or cheek, leading to infection.
-
ramps: tooth wears unevenly forming a slant, or ramp. Ramps also
interfere with chewing.
-
steps: caused by overgrowth in a molar table (group of molars)
caused by malocclusion (bad contact of chewing surfaces)
-
waves: a whole row of uneven molars that interferes with normal
jaw movement for chewing
-
excessive transverse ridges: improper alignment leads to uneven
wear, forming hard ridges and points
- Wolf
teeth
- rudimentary
premolars in front of the molars
- interfere
with the bit and, if impacted, can become inflamed
- Caps
- deciduous
or baby teeth that fail to shed
- interfere
with proper eruption of permanent teeth
- interfere
with chewing
- Missing,
loose or broken teeth
- Cavities
and necrotic (infected) teeth
- Root
abscesses
|
