Equine Dentistry

Equine Dentistry is an extremely important part of preventative medicine and maintaining good overall health to your horse. Without proper dentistry at regular intervals, horses are more likely to suffer weight loss, colics, alterred head carriage and negative responses to the bit under saddle.

Unlike our teeth, horses teeth continue to erupt or grow for most of their life, particularly in their younger years. Horses use their teeth to grind their food. This grinding also allows them to wear down their constantly growing teeth, however the shape this grinding creates can create issues. The Maxilla (upper jaw) is wider than the Mandible (lower jaw) so the molars do not sit directly in line with each other causing the outside edges of the maxilla molars and insider edge of the mandible molars not to grind down at the same speed as the rest of the teeths surface area. This cause sharp points which is where our Equine Dentistry comes in. Our vets are able to reshape and take off sharp points and ridges to prevent lacerations to the cheeks and tongue.  

Our vets use a specially designed mobile crush in conjunction with sedation and gags. This allows us to perform proper examination and corrective treatment while keeping the vet and handler safe, and also your horses comfortable and safe.

We use the lastest proven floating equipment to remove those sharp points on the upper and lower molars as well as correct misalignments of the cheek teeth and incisors.

Occasionally, an extraction is requested or recommended. This could be the simple removal of caps (baby teeth), the removal of wolf teeth (interfering with correct bit reaction), or molar extraction due to tooth root abscesses.

We reccommend a horses teeth be floated annually.