Dental Care

The horse of today is far removed from its original habitat. Horses in their natural environment would typically spend most of the day grazing poor quality tough forage. This almost constant grinding of the teeth would prevent some of the most common overgrowths we see and treat today. Domestication has placed very different demands on the horse and dental disease is increasingly recognised as a consequence.

Signs of dental disease include:

Quidding (the dropping of food from the mouth while eating)
Weight loss
Nasal discharge
Lumps/abscesses on the jaw
Undigested food in the faeces

If you or your vet suspects dental disease, we will examine the mouth carefully using a gag. The gag allows the vet to closely examine the horse's back teeth without having his hand bitten off! Many horses tolerate this fairly well, but other require sedation to make it safer and less stressful for the vet and the horse.

Below is a list of the common condtions our experinced vets deal with on a regular basis:

HOOKS: sharp protrusions that develop on teeth when an overbite, underbite or other dental deformity causes an imperfect meeting of the top and bottom arcades. Most common on the upper first cheek tooth and lower last molar.

STEP MOUTH: a cheek tooth row with one molar that has grown unopposed so it protrudes above the rest of the arcade. A gap in the op-posite molar lineup usually initiates the abnormality.

WAVE MOUTH: a severely restricting abnormality that occurs when two or more teeth in an arcade are high, creating a series of ascending and descending grinding surfaces.

SHEAR MOUTH: a dental configuration in which the molars’ grinding surfaces are worn at a sharp 60 to 75 degree angle. Normally the angle is 15 degrees.