28/03/2024
1. Bad odour or drooling
If your horse has bad breath, a likely cause is dental disease. It may be an infection of the gums, or an infected or rotten tooth that needs attention. Excessive drooling can also indicate a dental issue.
2. Eating issues
Problems with the way your horse eats is often a dead giveaway of a dental condition. Common eating issues to look out for include:
An inability to chew, or if your horse chews differently on one side compared to the other
Dropping feed from the mouth, or balling up of feed around the teeth or checks
Spitting out balls of feed it has already chewed (also known as quidding)
Chewing food very slowly
3. Weight losshorse dental check up
Chronic weight loss can also be a sign of dental problems - as without being able to chew properly, your horse will not be able to extract all the nutrition it needs out of its feed. However, overweight horses can also have bad teeth, so don’t assume their teeth are fine if they can still keep weight on.
4. Dehydration
Just like humans, horses’ teeth can be sensitive to extremes in temperature. Horses with dental issues may be reluctant to drink cold water – which is particularly a problem in our cold South Australian winter. Wetting your horse’s food or warming its drinking water can be used as stop-gap measures to avoid dehydration and constipation until you can enlist a vet to conduct a dental check-up.
5. Reacting to the bit or head tossing
If your horse is having issues with the bit, or tossing its head while being ridden, it may well be due to pain caused by ulceration or bad teeth. If your horse starts displaying behaviour changes, such as fussing or resisting the bit, or has increased head tossing, it’s well worth getting its teeth checked.
Call 931-575-1638 to make an appointment
