Equine Dentistry
Dental problems can lead to many secondary problems so it is imperative that you are aware of your horses dental routine and keep it up to date.
Horses teeth erupt continuously through most of their lives usually at a rate of 2-3mm a year. Unless the rate of wear of the cheek teeth equals the rate the teeth erupt; sharp enamel overgrowths and points can form, which if left unchecked can lead to pain and therefore problems eating. This is a problem of domestication because horses evolved to eat course, rough grass which would be more effective at wearing the teeth correctly.
This diagram represents the upper and lower cheek teeth seen as if looking from the front. The upper jaw is slightly wider than the lower jaw and the grinding surfaces of the teeth are at an angle. If the teeth are not worn correctly overgrowths tend to occur on the outside edge of the upper cheek teeth 
so traumatising the cheeks, and the inside edge of the lower cheek teeth 
causing trauma to the tongue. If these initial overgrowths are not corrected more serious dental problems can arise.
We recommend that your horse’s teeth are checked at least once a year
It is a good idea to get this done at the time of the annual vaccinations in order to save another visit charge. Although older horses are more often associated with having problem teeth; it is just as important for young horses from around 3 years of age to have their teeth checked. This gets them used to having their mouths looked at, and allows any problems associated with new teeth coming through as well as any sharp overgrowths to be dealt with. This is particularly important if a horse is being ‘bitted’ for the first time and beginning work.
In order to examine the cheek teeth fully, a metal gag is used to open the mouth. This allows the teeth right at the back to be visualised and palpated properly whilst reducing the likelihood of the vet losing a finger or the horse’s tongue becoming injured as a result of it being held out to the side to examine the mouth.
Understandably, not all horses are amenable to having their mouths held open with a metal gag for an examination to be conducted.
In this instance; in order to prevent injury to horse, owner and vet, we may recommend that your horse is given a small amount of sedation. This will make the whole experience much safer and more pleasant for everyone.
In our experience there are actually very few horses that will stand and tolerate teeth being rasped with no problem at all. We are very experienced in assessing whether a horse is going to require sedation and will discuss this with you at the time. There is little point chasing horses round a stable with a rasp if they will not stand sensibly, and we are obviously able to achieve a much more thorough job with the patient stood still and relaxed.
A note about sedation –
After a horse has been injected it usually takes around 5 minutes to take full effect and will last for around 40 minutes. We usually ask you to remove all food for the next couple of hours or until the horse is fully awake.
Although sedation does incur an extra cost, it can usually allow a significant amount of time to be saved and a thorough job to be done.
Assuming no complicated dental conditions are discovered, a routine rasp will be carried out. This will either be carried out with manual hand rasps or our electric rasp.
Electric rasp
We plan to start using the power equipment for more of our routine rasping. It enables us to carry out work faster (which we are sure the patients won’t mind) and is sometimes tolerated better, especially by horses which may have sores on the inside of their cheeks and tongues.
This rasp is particularly good if there are large overgrowths and abnormal patterns of wear present that cannot be tackled with manual hand rasps, these abnormal areas can be very accurately dealt with due to the small size of the grinding disc.
We will also be using this rasp on older patients. Due to the continuous eruption of horses teeth, by the time they reach a certain age, the length of root under the gum line is much reduced, making the teeth much more prone to becoming wobbly and even falling out. The electric rasp results in less vibration to the teeth of older horses than manual rasping.
If you have any questions on this subject or have any concerns relating to your horse please contact us and we will be happy to have a chat with you.
