Maintaining Your Horse's Well-Being with a Healthy Mouth

The old adage "straight from the horse's mouth" may seem more meaningful when you consider that a licensed practitioner can learn so much about an animal's health by examining its mouth.

A Broader Look at Health

Equine dentistry is more than just floating teeth.  Floating—the term for rasping or filing the horse's teeth—ensures that the horse maintains an even, properly aligned bite plane.  While floating is a physical or mechanical process, equine dentistry is much broader and examines the horse's health more systemically.

The general goals of equine dentistry include:

•  Improving the chewing of food
•  Relieving pain and treating or curing infection and disease
•  Promoting general health, productivity and longevity

Though most people think dentistry is primarily concerned with the teeth and mouth, it also includes the associated structures of the head – for instance the sinuses – and the effect of dental diseases on the health of the rest of the body.

Beyond the comfort and good health of your horse, there are other benefits to proper dental care.  Your horse will consume feed more efficiently with less spillage or waste and may perform better and live longer.

Schedule Exams Regularly

Dental disease is a source of pain and infection—it can affect the systemic health of your horse, especially if undetected or left untreated.  Routine examination by an experienced, licensed veterinarian will help detect dental disease and other health problems early—before they threaten the well-being of your horse.  These examinations make it much easier to diagnose and treat oral diseases early, preventing more severe and costly problems later.

A juvenile horse should have a dental examination when it is foaled, at three months and then every six months until age five. For healthy adult horses, a yearly dental examination is recommended.  Horses older than 20 or with a history of dental problems should return to a twice yearly schedule.

Trust Your Veterinarian

Certain observations in your horse may be clues to you or your veterinarian that a complete physical examination and a thorough dental exam may be in order.  Has your horse’s general attitude changed? Is the appetite normal? What about the ability to chew? How long does it take to eat? What’s the stool consistency? Is long stem hay present? Are there well-formed fecal balls?

The veterinarian may perform a complete physical examination, and other tests if needed, in order to evaluate the horse for possible risks (i.e., fever, severe anemia, ataxia, etc.) prior to carrying out the dental examination

Veterinary practitioners are best qualified to perform dental care on your animal because they are:

•  Trained in equine dentistry, medicine and surgery
•  Licensed to practice dentistry
•  Equipped with the proper resources to examine, diagnose, and treat dental disease
•  Prepared to refer particularly severe or complicated cases to specialists with extensive experience

To safely perform a thorough oral examination, sedation and adequate restraint is recommended.

Treatment may include antibiotics and anti-inflammatories.  All are things that a veterinarian is licensed to provide but an owner or layperson is not.

An oral exam should be an essential part of an annual examination by a veterinarian.  Every dental exam provides the opportunity to perform routine preventative dental care as well. The end result is a healthier, more comfortable horse.

Reprinted courtesy of the American Association of Equine Practitioners. 

Helping Your Foal Grow

A healthy foal will grow rapidly, gaining in height, weight and strength almost before your eyes.  From birth to age two, a young horse can achieve 90 percent or more of its full adult size, sometimes putting on as many as three pounds per day.  Feeding young horses is a balancing act, as the nutritional start a foal gets can have a profound affect on its health and soundness for the rest of its life.

At eight to ten weeks of age, mare’s milk alone may not adequately meet the foal’s nutritional needs, depending on the desired growth rate and owner wants for a foal.  As the foal’s dietary requirements shift from milk to feed and forage, your role in providing the proper nutrition gains in importance.  Following are guidelines from the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) to help you meet the young horse’s nutritional needs:

1. Provide high quality roughage (hay and pasture) free choice.
2. Supplement with a high quality, properly balanced grain concentrate at weaning, or earlier if more rapid rates of gain are desired.
3. Start by feeding one percent on a foal’s body weight per day (i.e., one pound of feed for each 100 pounds of body weight), or one pound of feed per month of age.
4. Weigh and adjust the feed ration based on growth and fitness.  A weight tape can help you approximate a foal’s size.
5. Foals have small stomachs so divide the daily ration into two to three feedings.
6. Make sure feeds contain the proper balance of vitamins, minerals, energy and protein.
7. Use a creep feeder or feed the foal separate from the mare so it can eat its own ration.  Try

to avoid group creep feeding situations.

1. Remove uneaten portions between feedings.
2. Do not overfeed.  Overweight foals are more prone to developmental orthopedic disease (DOD).
3. Provide unlimited fresh, clean water.
4. Provide opportunity for abundant exercise.

The reward for providing excellent nutrition and conscientious care will be a healthy foal that grows into a sound and useful horse.  For more information about providing proper nutrition for your foal, talk with your equine veterinarian.  Additional information about foal nutrition can also be found on the AAEP’s website www.aaep.org/horseowner.

Reprinted with permission from the American Association of Equine Practitioners.

Learn to Recognize your Horse’s Dental Problems

Horses with dental problems may show obvious signs, such as pain or irritation, or they may show no noticeable signs at all.  This is because some horses simply adapt to their discomfort.  For this reason, periodic dental examinations are essential to your horse’s health. 

            It is important to catch dental problems early.  If a horse starts behaving abnormally, dental problems should be considered as a potential cause.  Waiting too long may increase the difficulty of remedying certain conditions or may even make remedy impossible.  Look for the following indicators of dental problems from the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) to know when to seek veterinary attention for your horse:

1. Loss of feed from mouth while eating, difficulty with chewing, or excessive salivation.
2. Loss of body condition.
3. Large or undigested feed particles (long stems or whole grain) in manure.
4. Head tilting or tossing, bit chewing, tongue lolling, fighting the bit, or resisting bridling.
5. Poor performance, such as lugging on the bridle, failing to turn or stop, even bucking.
6. Foul odor from mouth or nostrils, or traces of blood from the mouth.
7. Nasal discharge or swelling of the face, jaw or mouth tissues.

Oral exams should be an essential part of an annual physical examination by a veterinarian.  Every dental exam provides the opportunity to perform routine preventative dental maintenance. Mature horses should get a thorough dental exam at least once a year, and horses 2 –5 years old should be examined twice yearly.

Early and regular examination of your horse's mouth will decrease the chances of broken teeth, requiring extractions. or pain and oral ulcers.  

Additional information is available on the AAEP’s website www.aaep.org/horseowner.

Sections reprinted with permission from the American Association of Equine Practitioners. 

To Blanket or Not to Blanket,

That is the Question.

This is a question many people start asking themselves as fall rolls around. The cooler weather rolls in, you start putting on an extra layer yourself before going out to do chores or ride, and you wonder if your horse needs an extra layer as well.

Most horses naturally grow a fluffy winter coat as the days begin getting shorter, after shedding out their summer coat, and blanketing a horse too early or too heavily may leave you piling the layers on to a chilly horse when the weather gets really cold. The average horse has in its digestive system a 24-36 gallon fermentation vat (the hindgut – cecum and large intestine). This is where the majority of their feed digestion takes place. This fermentation produces large quantities of energy in the form of heat, which helps to keep them warm even in the coldest weather.

But he just looks cold! Even with their insulating coat and personal internal heater, some horses just like people just don’t like the cold. Very young horses and older horses can be particularly susceptible to the cold, as they are using more energy to grow or maintain body condition. Horses with increased energy demands, such as high levels of work, growth, or age, can often benefit from a blanket to decrease the energy they put towards keeping themselves warm.
Clipped horses in the winter should always have some type of blanket or sheet, depending on the amount of clipping, as you have removed their natural protection from the weather.

So if you’ve decided to blanket, when to start? And what type?
Guidelines for body clipped horses and hard keepers:

40-50 degrees

• A lightweight turnout sheet
• Protection from wind and rain

20-40 degrees

• A midweight blanket
• Warmth
• Blocks wind and rain 
• Good for almost all winter weather

 Teens and below

• Heavy weight blanket
• Extreme cold
• Or horses not adjusted to cold weather (shipped from the south in the winter)

Healthy young adult to adult horses with normal haircoat:

20-40 degrees

• Consider a lightweight blanket or sheet for turn out if stabled for long periods in a warm >45degree barn

Teens and below

• Light to midweight blanket for turnout if not adjusted to temperature (stabled in warm barn or normally wears stable sheet)

Don’t forget if you decide to blanket, to regularly remove the blanket and check for wear spots, any rubs on the horse, and make sure the straps are in good condition.