08/02/2024
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February is National Pet Dental Health Month. While horses don’t exactly qualify as pets, this is still a good opportunity to remind everyone about the importance of having a veterinarian check your horse’s teeth at least once a year.
Following is some important food for thought (pun intended) courtesy of AAEP member Dr. Christine Staten:
“Did you know that horses don’t really need their incisors to eat? Yep, even pasture. But if their incisors are a mess, it affects their ability to appropriately grind their food with their molars and pre-molars.
Dental work in horses is not just about floating teeth to get off points. It’s about balancing the mouth so that they can get the most nutrition out of their food without pain.
Shearing hay in the mouth is necessary to get the nutrition out. The guy in the picture was skinny because he could not move his jaw laterally enough to shear his food, but his health and body condition score improved significantly once the incisors were balanced.”
When was the last time you had your horse’s teeth checked?
