10/30/2022
Are you quidding??
What is quidding?
👉 Bits of wadded up, chewed hay or feed. They are usually laying around the area where you feed your horse.
If you are seeing these little balls of cud then:
1.)You most likely have an older horse who has lost most of his teeth.
2.) Your horse recently had his teeth floated and is adjusting to their corrected tables.
3.) Your horse has sore teeth, loose or broken teeth, sharp points, malocclussions or dental disease. AND needs to be scheduled to see an equine dentist.
4.) Your horse has pain or dysfunction in his jaw or TMJ (temporomandibular joint).
All these issues results in poorly chewed balls of forage. These slobbery wads are more easily identifiable when horses are eating hay, especially in stalls, but can also occur when they live on grass pastures.
🧐 Quidding is a common reason older horses start to lose weight, because they lose their ability to properly chew forage.
✨️ Regardless of age, horses need to eat roughly 1.5-2% of their body weight per day from a high fiber source. If a horse is eating forage, but not actually swallowing it or getting a good enough grind to properly digest it, they might not actually be getting enough fiber in their diet to maintain ideal body condition.
⚠️Most common and also not so common reasons for Quidding
🔹️Bad teeth! A horse with a hook, ramp,wave mouth, caries, sharp points or fractured teeth will have trouble eating. It could also be from sores on their cheeks or tongue caused by these tooth problems, or it could be that their teeth are not lining up at all.
🔹️An abscessed tooth. Talk about ouch. When a tooth becomes infected, your horse will have pain, and often a horrible smell in his mouth.
🔸️Neurological diseases, such as Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), can result in neurological signs and paralysis that cause quidding. EPM is also a neurological disease that causes odd symptoms including chewing or TMJ pain.
🔸️Arthritis can often play a part in how comfortably your horse eats. Horses get TMJ issues, just like humans!
🔸️Is there a foreign object lodged in your horse’s mouth? It wouldn’t surprise many Vets to find a stick or something wedged in your horse’s mouth.
🔸️Is there some sort of injury to your horse’s face or jaw? A puncture, swelling from an insect bite, a fracture, a kick, a bruise?
🖋Take Note to slight exceptions:
With older horses that have had good dental care don’t worry about quidding. Older horses' teeth wear out. It's just part of aging. All you can do at that point is keep the sharp points off thier teeth to make sure their remaining teeth don’t irritate the opposing gums or cheeks. When this is the case a diet change is needed.
🖋Sometimes when horses teeth are floated, some of the rough ridges are removed and this will interfere with proper hay chewing. 💥This should not last more than a few days after the float. 💥
🖋 TMJ pain can occur when a horse loses muscle tone in their chewing muscles. Pain on one side of the horses teeth will cause uneven chewing, leading to TMJ pain. TMJ pain can also come from injuries directly to the jaw and poll.
So don’t panic when you see evidence of quidding but do ask why and fix it if possible. And keep your horse on a regular schedule with a dentist. Every 6 months to 1 year!
