Garden State Equine Veterinary Dentistry

Garden State Equine Veterinary Dentistry Comprehensive equine dental care & exceptional service for horse owners and trainers in New Jersey.

As a critical component of your horse's health care team, we complement and enhance the care that your horse receives from your regular veterinarian. This mobile dental practice sees routine and referral cases at farms and equine hospitals throughout most of the Garden State.

Did you know Dr. McAndrews sees the dentistry cases at New Bolton Center, the University of Pennsylvania's large animal ...
09/11/2025

Did you know Dr. McAndrews sees the dentistry cases at New Bolton Center, the University of Pennsylvania's large animal veterinary hospital? This means that veterinary students on their large animal surgery rotation get to spend time each week exploring dentistry and getting experience with unique referral cases.

Yesterday, we had a special lecture session and lab for equine-focused students. Dental anatomy, oral exam components, common findings, and diagnostic imaging were discussed in depth. Then in lab, students had the opportunity to practice what they learned. Students practiced performing oral exams and odontoplasty, and got to hone their dental radiography skills! Some students even got to extract some teeth!

Equine dentistry is an important component to overall horse health, and veterinary students are trained in how to do proper oral exams, diagnose problems, and provide treatment.

Who doesn't love horse camp?! These lovely ladies at  got to have a hands-on dentistry demonstration at horse camp! They...
08/28/2025

Who doesn't love horse camp?! These lovely ladies at got to have a hands-on dentistry demonstration at horse camp! They got to see and touch a real horse skull, got to get a good look in a horse's mouth, were able to check out the teeth using an oral endoscope, and even got to stick their hands in to feel the cheek teeth before and after floating the sharp enamel points! We love educating the next generation of equestrians! Side note, don't they have the coolest scrubs?!

We happen to have quite a large number of miniature donkey clients, but it is fairly rare that we get to work on standar...
08/14/2025

We happen to have quite a large number of miniature donkey clients, but it is fairly rare that we get to work on standard sized donkeys. Yesterday, we got to see a whole bunch of them! There was one donkey (and one goat) that were particularly curious about dentistry! Here are some photos for your enjoyment of this donkey offering his friend some moral support! Don't forget that donkeys & mules need routine dentistry too!

We love having so many clients that are also veterinarians! Thirteen of the seventeen horses we saw today were owned by ...
07/14/2025

We love having so many clients that are also veterinarians! Thirteen of the seventeen horses we saw today were owned by a total of four veterinarians. These veterinarians had quite the breadth of expertise: pathology, regulatory, small animal, and equine. Veterinary medicine is such a cool field with so many different aspects and we were happy we could help some of our own with their horses!

When the opportunity presents itself to snuggle a foal, you can't pass it up! This little guy is appropriately named "Li...
07/09/2025

When the opportunity presents itself to snuggle a foal, you can't pass it up! This little guy is appropriately named "Little Foot" and is only about 3 weeks old! He & his mom were kindly rescued by . He stood watch while his mom got some much needed dental care! Dental care should start at birth, and Little Foot got a brief exam too to make sure his teeth appear to be erupting normally.

We love to love on your horses, including with bribes of treats! But please please refrain from offering treats before t...
06/12/2025

We love to love on your horses, including with bribes of treats! But please please refrain from offering treats before their dental exam! We actually bring our own super special treats with us to appointments that DON’T stick to the teeth like this, so that any horses that require food bribes to befriend us or to be compliant for IV injections can still get a snack 😬

The answer to yesterday's post! This horse has had a long history of a draining tract from his left mandible that was be...
06/06/2025

The answer to yesterday's post!

This horse has had a long history of a draining tract from his left mandible that was believed to be a non-healing wound. On radiographs, you can see that the draining tract communicates directly to the apically infected 307! This tooth has a tooth root abscess. Due to the chronic infection (and gravity), the abscess is draining from the mandible. Luckily, this "non-healing wound" can be easily fixed with the extraction of this infected tooth! Once the problem tooth is removed, the infection will resolve and the draining tract will heal.

Can you spot the abnormality? One mandibular cheek tooth quadrant is normal, while the other is not. We will post the an...
06/05/2025

Can you spot the abnormality? One mandibular cheek tooth quadrant is normal, while the other is not. We will post the answer tomorrow!

Malocclusions are a common problem we see in miniature horses and donkeys. Sometimes there just simply isn't enough room...
05/26/2025

Malocclusions are a common problem we see in miniature horses and donkeys. Sometimes there just simply isn't enough room to fit the same number of full-sized teeth into the skulls of these tiny equines. Some malocclusions can be managed by diligent routine dental care, but unfortunately others cannot. In this case, the 107 was overlong and displaced towards the cheek, while the 108 was overlong, rotated, and displaced towards the palate. Because these teeth didn't line up properly and fit together as tightly as they should, food was able to pack between them and around them, causing periodontal disease and leading infection and bone loss around the teeth. These teeth were extracted to prevent further complications from advanced periodontal disease. (For the veterinarians following along, there are other abnormalities on the radiograph pictured, but we chose to just focus on this one for this Facebook post).

For our miniature friends that visit us at our clinic, we have a specialized set up just for them! For a lot of these little fellows, it can be hard to elevate and extend their head enough for us to work on them without either them being uncomfortable or us literally laying on the floor. For the comfort of both them and ourselves, we have a ramp system specially designed to fit in our stocks so that we can work sitting down and they can keep their heads nice and level while being safely contained. We had this design custom made for us for the safety and comfort of our smallest patients.

Ouch! This tooth is fractured! While the fracture is very obvious, lets talk about why this happened! Horses can get car...
05/15/2025

Ouch! This tooth is fractured! While the fracture is very obvious, lets talk about why this happened! Horses can get caries (cavities) in their maxillary cheek teeth. This happens when decay develops within the infundibulum. As these caries fill with feed material, the crown of the tooth gets weaker. This decay can eventually lead to fracture and/or an infection. Feed was packed so deeply into this particular fracture that both halves of the tooth were displaced, poking this horse in the cheek and the palate. The first photo was taken after all of the feed material had been removed. The other photos were taken after extraction of the tooth. This horse will feel much better without this painful fractured tooth!

We are super excited to introduce our new fence at The Horse Park of New Jersey! We are proud to be a sponsor of the  an...
04/28/2025

We are super excited to introduce our new fence at The Horse Park of New Jersey! We are proud to be a sponsor of the and support our local equine community. If you have photos of yourself jumping our fence, like , tag us so we can see!

This senior horse presented for the evaluation of nasal discharge. He was severely underweight, weighing approximately 3...
04/09/2025

This senior horse presented for the evaluation of nasal discharge. He was severely underweight, weighing approximately 300lbs less than he should. He had a Body Condition Score of 2/9, despite the owner believing they were feeding the horse adequately. We want to emphasize the fact that age is not a disease. Horses should not be skinny just because they are old - it is either because there is an underlying condition or because they are not being fed properly.

Upon oral exam, this horse’s teeth had excessive wear due to geriatric attrition, meaning his teeth were quite smooth with very little grinding surface. There was rotting feed material packing in between spaces in between his cheek teeth causing severe periodontal disease, which you can see in the photos. The periodontal disease had caused significant bone loss of his cheek teeth. In the radiographs posted, the red marks where the bone should be, while the yellow marks where the bone actually is.

As we have mentioned before, periodontal disease is a painful condition. Between the smoothness of the cheek teeth and the painful periodontal disease, these are certainly contributing factors to this horse’s inability to properly digest his food and gain weight. This periodontal disease had also caused a tooth infection which was now causing his sinus infection. When periodontal disease has advanced to this point, the only course of treatment are extractions.

The extraction of the diseased teeth along with diet modifications will allow this horse to be more comfortable and regain weight. If your senior horse is looking thin, don’t say “Oh, it is just old age.” Instead, have your veterinarian out to do some investigating.

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Freehold, NJ
07728

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