Article From SubmitYOURArticle.com: Horse Dentistry - Keeping Your Horse's Teeth Healthy

Just like their owners, horses will require
periodic dental care. While things like cavities
are less of an issue in a horse (unless you have
fed your horse a diet with a lot of refined
sugars), horses will need to have their teeth
looked at. A horse's teeth grow continuously
throughout most of the horse's life and fed a
horse's natural diet of foraged grass and other
plants, these teeth will wear themselves down at
about the rate that the teeth grow in.

Unfortunately, one of the shortfalls of modern
horse care is that horses have been removed from
their natural conditions and are often fed types
of feed that will not wear down the teeth as
efficiently as the teeth were developed to.

What are the dangers of a horse's teeth wearing
unevenly? Occasionally these mis-worn teeth will
be ground into razor sharp hooks that can cause a
horse serious discomfort. Often with the help of
the halter, the cheek will be pressed against the
tooth where it will be sliced into repeatedly.
This of course can lead to infection, and
certainly a great deal of pain.

If left unchecked, the uneven wear could
eventually lead a horse to chew in an unnatural
fashion that could, in the end, lead to a tooth
that simply loosens and falls out. A horse
missing teeth will of course be even more prone
to wearing its teeth unevenly.

Without leaving your horse out to pasture for
eighteen hours a day, how is a horse owner to
cope? This is where we need the services of
equine dentists. Using a rasp, either manually
or by means of a power tool, an equine dentist
will "float" your horse's teeth. The idea is
that the sharp ridges and hooks that may have
been created will be filed down, allowing the
horse eventually to move its jaw in the correct
manner and without pain.

The equine dentist will not file the horse's
teeth until they are smooth however. The horse
needs some contours to its teeth for proper
chewing. The teeth will be filed to roughly the
same length, and if a horse's canine tooth has
grown too long, it may be filed as well.
Sometimes, a tooth might grow too long to be
filed. When this happens, a dentist will then
use a specialized tool to cut it down to size.
This task especially is best left to a
professional to ensure that your horse's tooth
will not shatter.

In order to detect a dental problem in your
horse, simply pay attention to how the horse
eats. If you notice your horse to be salivating
more than usual, to eat very slowly, to drop
un-chewed food from their mouths or who have
feces with large pieces of food visible, it may
be time to call in the equine dentist. If you
are not sure where to locate a equine dentist in
your city, you can ask your veterinarian or other
horse owners for recommendation. In actual fact,
many equine veterinarians are also trained in
equine dentistry.

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Do you know that the first horse was called
Hyracotherium? It lived about 50 million years
ago and was only as tall as a fox. To learn more
about horse health and training & horse supplies,
visit:
http://www.petcustomer.com/category/horse/health-h
orse/
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re/

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