Dentistry

A horse’s teeth, unlike a human’s, continuously erupt throughout their lives. In the wild a horse/pony would spend up to 16 hours per day eating a fairly coarse fibrous diet (e.g. ponies on Exmoor and Dartmoor). This generally causes natural, fairly even wear of the teeth. As we have domesticated horses and ponies, we have significantly altered their diets with high quality but less fibrous grass, hay and haylage. In addition we feed manufactured compound feeds which reduce the amount a horse chews. This unnatural diet leads to uneven or abnormal wearing of the teeth.

Routine dental care is essential to prevent discomfort when a bridle or bit is in place, and ensures peak performance. In addition it will allow them to eat normally. Horses and ponies under eight years of age or those with specific dental abnormalities should be examined and treated every six months. Those aged over eight years may well only need to be treated once a year which can be easily combined with their annual vaccination

Horses are often very stoical about dental pain and will commonly show few symptoms despite having significant problems. The common symptoms include:

• Dropping partially chewed food from the mouth (quidding).
• Apparent difficulty chewing.
• Weight loss.
• Unpleasant odours coming from the mouth.
• Facial swellings.
• Behavioural changes.
• Reduced performance when ridden/worked.
• One or more episodes of choke.
• Nasal discharge.

These symptoms can be caused by a range of common dental abnormalities such as sharp points, hooks/overgrowth, wave or sheer mouth, diastemas (gaps between teeth), fractured teeth, dental caries and apical abscesses.

We can carry out a full range of dental procedures at your stables or at our clinic. All of this is carried out by experienced qualified veterinary surgeons backed up by full hospital facilities. We are able to carry out the following:

• Routine dental rasping.
• Sedation where required.
• Wolf tooth removal.
• Dental radiography.
• Tooth extraction.