Beginner Teeth

So in the Intermediate section of Preventative Care, I promised more info about teeth. Without further ado, all you never wanted to know (and then some!)

So you know your horse has teeth. Big ones. Sharp ones. You may even have had the misfortune of having felt them before! Do you have any idea how many teeth your horse has? And did you realize that they are *always* growing?




So your horse likely has between 36 and 40 teeth depending on whether it's a mare or a gelding/stallion (mares usually don't have canine teeth) and whether or not the wolf teeth come in (wolf teeth, if they appear, are almost always pulled as they can be painful and may interfere with the bit).

• The incisors (officially I1, I2, I3 from the middle out) are the central incisor (1), the middle incisor (2), and the corner incisor (3). Creative eh? These are used for biting the food -- just like yours!
  
• Then there is a gap, technically the "interdental space" but more commonly known as the bars, this is where the bit rests.
  
• At the far back, again as in your mouth, are the molars (6). These are the chewing teeth, used to grind the food for digestion. The three molars closest to the front are referred to as the premolars.
  
• Wolf teeth (5), if they appear, are found right in front of the molars and tend to be short and pointy. They provide no real benefit to the current domestic horse. These usually only come in on the upper jaw.
  
• Canine teeth (4), aka Tushes, in the boys, are in the space between the incisors and the molars (called the.... ??? that'd be the bars -- look up a couple points!). They usually don't exactly line up with each other -- the lower jaw canines are closer to the incisors than the upper jaw. These tend to be super sharp. You do very occasionally see them in mares, but usually they're unerrupted (a bump under the gums) or tiny.

By 9 months a foal will have a full set of 24 baby teeth (called deciduous teeth - like deciduous trees, they shed). These will eventually be replaced by permanent teeth -- usually by the age of 5. They will also pick up 12 new molars, possibly wolf teeth, and for geldings and stallions the canine teeth (four).

Got all that?

Ok so now you know how many teeth your horse has and where they go, but what about the idea that they're always growing? This is why somebody who's really old might be said to be "long in the tooth". They also form a much sharper angle as they get older (young teeth, the top incisor meet the bottom like | Old teeth the top incisors meet the bottom like < -- in a horse looking left that is Gotta love ascii illustration!). Now while they are always growing, they are also always wearing down; and in a perfect scenario, at about the same rate. It's that whole "perfect scenario" thing that causes problems.

Your horse's top jaw is wider than the bottom. When he grazes in the wild his jaw moves from side-to-side as he munches - for up to 18h a day! What a life :) This helps keep the wear on the teeth even. But when the horse eats hard feed (ie pellets, grain, etc) the jaw moves much less, which means the teeth do not wear evenly. The stabled horse is also far less likely to spend all day grazing. This combination of less grazing and less jaw movement causes very sharp points appear on the outside of the upper molars and the inside of the lower ones. To help with this we "float" or rasp the teeth -- usually needs to be done about once/year, but they should be checked every six months, just in case. This basically files the sharp points off so your horse can be comfortable.



Some signs that your horse may need his teeth done include:

• Head shaking or tossing, esp when riding.
  
• Feed packing (you may see bumps on the outsides of the molars because of accumulation of feed)
  
• Quidding (opposite of feed packing, the food basically drools out as he eats)
  
• Bitting problems
  
• Reluctant to eat
  
• Pulling/tilting the head to one side when being ridden
  
• You might find large particles of straw and oats in the manure
  
• Colics and impactions of the throat.
  
• Losing weight and condition, dull coat
  
• Frothing and excessive salivation (again, esp with the bit in)

Copious amounts of information today. Did you get it all?