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Equine Facts
Routine dental care is essential to your horse's health. Periodic examinations and regular maintenance, such as floating, are especially necessary today for a number of reasons:
...We have modified the horse's diet and eating patterns through domestication and confinement.
...We demand more from our performance horses, beginning at a younger age, than ever before.
...We often select breeding animals without regard to dental considerations.
Proper dental care has its rewards. Your horse will be more comfortable, will utilize feed more efficiently, may perform better, and may even live longer.
The Horses Mouth
Horses evolved as grazing animals, and their teeth are perfectly adapted for that purpose. The forward teeth, known as incisors, function to shear off forage. The cheek teeth, including the molars and premolars with their wide, flat, graveled surfaces, easily grind the feed to a mash before it is swallowed.
Like humans, horses get two sets of teeth in their lifetime. The baby teeth, also called deciduous teeth, are temporary. The first deciduous incisors may erupt before the foal is born. The last baby teeth come in when the horse is about 8 months of age. These teeth begin to be replaced by adult teeth around age 2 1/2. By age 5, most horses have their full complement of permanent teeth. An adult male horse has 40 permanent teeth. A mare may have between 36-40, because mares are less likely to have canine (bridle) teeth.
Floating & Preventative Maintenance
The process of rasping or filing a horse's teeth is known as floating.
This is the most common dental procedure veterinarians perform on
horses. Floating removes sharp enamel points and can create a more even
bite plane. It also helps keep incisors and cheek teeth at a desirable
length.
When turned out on pasture, horses browse almost continuously, picking
up dirt and grit in the process. This, plus the silicate in grass, wears
down the teeth. Stabled horses, however, may not give their teeth the
same workout. Feedings are more apt to be scheduled, not continuous, and
to include processed grains and hays. Softer feeds require less chewing.
This may allow the horse's teeth to become excessively long or to wear
unevenly. Adult horse's teeth erupt throughout their life and are worn
off by chewing.
Unfortunately, cheek teeth tend to develop sharp enamel points even
under normal grazing conditions. Because the horse's lower jaw is
narrower than its upper jaw and the horse grinds its feed with a
sideways motion, sharp points tend to form along the edges. Points form
on the cheek side of the upper teeth and the tongue side of the lower
teeth. These points should be rasped to prevent them from cutting the
cheeks and tongue.
Floating is especially important in horses who have lost a tooth, or
whose teeth are in poor apposition and do not fit together well.
Normally, contact with the apposing tooth keeps biting surfaces equal.
When cheek teeth are out of alignment, hooks can form.
If left unchecked, these hooks can become long enough to penetrate the
hard or soft palate. Small hooks can be removed by floating. Longer
hooks are usually removed with molar cutters or a dental chisel.
Wolf Teeth
Wolf teeth are very small teeth located in front of the second premolar
and do not have long roots that set them firmly in the jaw bone. They
rarely appear in the lower jaw. A horse may have one, two, or no wolf
teeth. While not all wolf teeth are troublesome, veterinarians routinely
remove them to prevent pain or interference from a bit.
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