A.D Equine Services- Avaani Danyals Equine Dental Technician

Professional Equine Dental service offered in Yorkshire & surrounding areas by a patient, understanding female with 27 years experience with horses.

Equine dentistry is an essential requirement in horse care, with the teeth requiring examination & routine maintenance work between 6 & 12 months. The variation in intervals depends upon the individual horse & varies with age, conformation & any abnormalities which may be present. Recent studies have found that up to 80% of domesticated horses have significant dental abnormalities, dental problems are one of the biggest problems affecting the general well being or going of the horse & many issues including ridden or behavioral problems such as; bit evasion, head shaking or tilting, bolting or rearing. Nutritional problems such as; quidding (dropping food), loss of condition, lethargy & slow healing time, colic or choke bouts, nasal discharge or swellings.

Horses have between 36 & 44 teeth which are in rows of 11(known as arcades) starting from the central incisors & working back to the last cheek tooth. These teeth grow approximately 4mm per year, in the wild the horse would grind these growths down naturally with its constant grazing on high fibre diets. However due to evolution & domestication horses are not generally constantly grazing, or may have more cereal based diets which do not require as much chewing /grinding action to wear down these 4mm growths & this then encourages sharp points to form on the buccal (outside) edge of the upper teeth arcades & the lingual (inside) edge of the lower teeth arcades. It is these sharp edges which can cause trauma to the soft tissues of the cheeks & tongue & cause immense pain & discomfort to our beloved equine friends. These excess teeth growth can also cause hooks & ramps on the back teeth & restrict jaw movement which can become evident whilst engaging in ridden work, especially when being asked to take up a contact or drop into an outline.