Looking After Your Horse’s Teeth

When you call your Equine Dental Technician or vet out for a routine visit, are you ever left wondering “why exactly does my horse need to see the dentist?”

Dentistry is as much of an essential part of a horse routine as farriery and inoculations. The main reason for the need to have routine dental treatment is that the horse has been removed from his natural environment and domesticated.

Horses are grazing animals and in their natural environment they roam their territory and feed on abrasive grasses such as cordgrass, supplemented by thorny stems, twigs, rose hips and seaweeds, and this is what the horses dental anatomy is designed to chew on and thus wear the teeth down sufficiently. However, we as the horse owner turn our horses out in lush soft pasture and feed them on soft meadow hay, which is not coarse enough.

Horses are known as having hypsodont teeth, which basically means that they are long crowned (approx 4-5” as a youngster) with limited growth but wear continually throughout the horses life at a rate of 3-5mm per year. This gives each tooth an approximate lifespan of 25-30 years depending on diet and whether the horse has had regular dentistry. Many people think that horses are like rabbits and rats and that they have an unlimited tooth growth but this is not the case.

Equine teeth are made of three different densities of material; enamel, dentin and pulp. Pulp is not exposed at the tooth surface but is protected by dentin. Enamel is the hardest of these materials and each tooth comprises of enamel folds giving a durable grinding surface and the outside surface of the tooth is covered with a semi durable material called cementum.

In the domesticated horse, enamel does not wear away as it should and produces very sharp enamel points that ulcerate the cheeks and tongue causing extreme pain and discomfort to the horse. Due to the upper set of cheek teeth being 30% wider than the lower set of teeth and the way the narrower lower jaw sits anatomically; you get an overhang of tooth on the cheek sides of the uppers and tongue sides of the lowers and it is these areas that get sharp and cause the ulceration.

As a horse owner, the symptoms you should look out for when you horse requires dentistry would be tiliting/shaking of the head when eating or being ridden, dropping feed, bad breath, nasal discharge, long fibres of hay in faeces, choking and teeth grinding. However, no horse should be left to get to the point where any of the above symptoms are displayed and this emphasises the importance of routine treatment.

Some horse owners are confused about equine dental technicians (EDTs), the governing bodies and who is qualified to do what, so here is some information that you may find useful when deciding who to choose to treat your horse.

In order to be a qualified EDT in Britain, an individual needs to have passed the BEVA/BVDA or the WWAED examination. Those EDTs who have passed the BEVA/BVDA examination then become eligible to join the BAEDT. Any EDT that has not passed these exams is not qualified and has no governing body regulating their work.

Every horse owner has the right to choose the person caring for their horses’ teeth, but bear in mind that it is only possible to regulate the equine dental industry if horse owners choose an EDT that has proven their capabilities and abides by BAEDT or WWAED performance guidelines.

BEVA: British Equine Veterinary Association
http://www.beva.org.uk
Essentially, an organisation to promote veterinary and allied sciences related to the welfare of the horse. Further Aims and objectives can be found on their website along with the current list of qualified EDTs.

BVDA: British Veterinary Dental Association
http://www.bvda.co.uk
BVDA was established by a group of Veterinary Surgeons who had a particular interest in Veterinary dentistry. The aims of the association are to educate and train Veterinary and Dental Surgeons in animal dentistry and to promote practice, teaching and research of animal dentistry.

BAEDT: British Association of Equine Dental Technicians
http://www.baedt.com
The BAEDT is an organisation for qualified professional Equine Dental Technicians, promoting the professional training of technicians and to provide greater understanding of the need for equine dentistry to the general public. Once EDTs have passed the BEVA exam, they then become eligible to join the BAEDT.

WWAED: WorldWide Association of Equine Dentistry
http://www.wwaed.org
The WWAED is an independent association of equine dentists with DEFRA and RCVS approval. A list of WWAED members can be found on their website.

Author: Victoria Hammond, Equine Dental

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