Equine dentistry has come a long way from the “two floats in a bucket” method of a few years ago. Dentistry traditionally was a procedure done once a year, usually starting on a horse in its teens when problems would become apparent. Following the lead of small animal and human dentistry in technology and training, we now know that there are a myriad of problems that can be occurring in a horse’s mouth at any age, due basically to domestication disrupting evolutionary plans. These problems often get their start when the horse is a youngster and proceed for years without any outward indication. They may or may not affect his performance, but will affect the longevity and quality of his life overall.
Dental problems occur because of two main reasons: Natural consequences of dental eruption patterns in the horse and we humans altering their natural lifestyle and eating habits.
A young horse is born with a mouth similar to ours in the respect that they have baby teeth and permanent teeth. The similarity ends there. We have a Brachyodant tooth, a name for a tooth that, when it comes in fully as a permanent tooth, is all we get. The horse has a Hipsodant tooth, a name for a continually erupting tooth. This is how nature compensated for the continuous wear that a horse’s tooth would be subjected to as a lifelong grazing animal.
Between the ages of 1 and 5 years old, a horse loses 24 teeth and has 36 – 42 teeth erupting that can cause him considerable discomfort. Wolf teeth are small teeth that erupt in a young horse’s mouth and are located in front of the first cheek teeth. These small vestigial teeth have had no purpose for the last several million years, but they may be problematic in many young saddle horses if they are not removed. They are located in the general area where the bit lies in the mouth and have often been the culprit in head tossing problems, mouthing, and general misbehavior in horses.
Premolars are the first 3 cheek teeth in the molar arcades and have baby teeth that precede permanent ones. From 2 ˝ to 5 years old, as these “baby” teeth (caps) are shed, they leave very sharp points on the adult premolars that are emerging. For horses carrying a bit, these points become very uncomfortable as cheek tissue is bunched and the points often cut the inside of the horse’s cheek. When a horse is uncomfortable from those points gouging the inside of the cheek, they attempt to avoid that pain. Riders may experience many different problem behaviors that relate to how the mouth, the bit, and the emergence of new teeth interact, including fussing with the bit or reluctance to turning or backing. Many a bit or a trainer has been changed trying to overcome problems that are pain related in the mouth.
The other problem is we humans. We have taken an animal that nature intended to roam free and graze 16 – 18 hours a day and confined them. Maybe not to a stall, but at least to a way of nourishing their bodies that is not natural. We feed them hay. Now, I can just hear a lot of you saying, “No we don’t do that, sometimes my horse is out grazing for hours a day or even months at a time!” That doesn’t really count for much, at least not from a horse’s tooth’s standpoint. A horse would have to be “making a living” grazing every day of his life, to make a difference to his teeth. Their teeth were intended for them all to be used and worn off continuously and evenly into their mid 20s.
When we feed hay and concentrates, we feed “prenipped” feed. It essentially passes the incisors (front teeth) and moves back to the molars to be ground. The incisors experience no abrasive wear, and continue to grow unheeded. The molars are wearing as intended as they grind the hay. But now there is an imbalance of wear, and the imbalances start creating the problems in the picture in this article.
Some of you will probably not notice anything amiss with your horses, perhaps until they reach their mid teens or later. They perform well, they eat well, they don’t lose weight. But like ourselves, we don’t notice a problem coming on in our own mouth until it is a real problem and it starts to hurt. That is why we have regular check ups (or should), to identify a problem coming on and handling it before it becomes worse and we lose a tooth and/or it becomes much more uncomfortable and expensive than preventative maintenance.
The pictures at the beginning of this article depict some of the problems that we actually see. The “hole” in the cheek was the result of sharp points creating painful ulcerations. The “hook” on the first cheek tooth was at least several years growth and belonged to a horse that was owned by some very conscientious, but unaware owners. Both of these horses had been receiving yearly dental care.
In the next two months we will briefly discuss how these conditions are treated and the newest equipment and techniques in dental care, including the fact that horses do have dental decay and periodontal problems and what we can do about them to save their teeth and the related discomfort.
