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EQUINE MATTERS
DENTAL CARE
Veterinary surgeon
Karl Holliman
XLVets Equine practice
Cliffe Veterinary
Group
Dentistry is an essential and important part of the health care of your horse. This
is especially true for the veteran equine. Your horse's teeth should be examined
at least once a year. In some individuals, particularly for those with dental
abnormalities, dental work may be required more frequently.
As qualified veterinary surgeons we are able to provide sedation, pain relief
and local anaesthesia as required during dental work, which can allow a more
thorough examination and treatment, as well as less pain and stress to your
horse. This can also be safer for the horse, veterinary surgeon and the handler.
Dental care of the
older
horse
Karl Holliman BVM&S CertEP BAEDT MRCVS,
Cliffe Veterinary Group
Why do old horses have specific
dental problems?
Figure 2.
Displaced back tooth with food packing
in diastema
During the course of evolution, horses' teeth
have adapted to chew grass and fibre, but in
doing so the teeth wear down at a rate of two
to three mm per year. This wear is balanced
by eruption at an equal rate, until the horse
reaches its mid to late twenties, when all of
the reserve crown will have erupted. With
improving management and veterinary health
care our equine friends are now living longer.
It is now not unusual to find horses and ponies
living into their mid thirties and beyond. This
'wearing' out of dental tissue presents us with
a particular challenge to provide dental care
and dietary management.
The grinding surface of the equine crown is
a complicated arrangement of folds of
enamel, dentine and cement. These structures
vary in hardness and wear down at different
rates (enamel being the hardest); this ensures
the surface of the tooth is a rough grinding
surface. It is this rough surface that makes the
equine tooth so efficient at chewing fibre
and grass. With age the crown is lost as it
wears out, leaving the root of the tooth in the
mouth. The root of the tooth has no central
folds of enamel, only a simple rim, the
centre is mainly softer dentine and cement
(Figure 1). This makes the root smooth
centrally and therefore, much less efficient
at grinding fibre.
Figure 1.
Worn cheek teeth with little enamel
and poor grinding ability