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Equine Dentistry - “Old Horse Tooth”

The opinions and views of this blog is for information and entertainment only and should not be used as a substitute for seeking advice from your veterinarian about your horse and your situation. Specific advice may only be given after a valid veterinary - client - patient relationship is made.The teeth of a horse continually erupt.  Not like a volcano.  More slowly like the shifting continental plates or a glacier.  The way the teeth were designed was ingenious.  First, remember that a horse is a continuous eater (remember a past newsletter “Why Do We Feed Grain?”).  So they are constantly chewing.  This was actually studied and the number of chew motions is between 10,000 and 40,000 times a day (there are 86,400 seconds in a day so about a third of a day is spent chewing).  Second, the horse tooth was designed to crush grass by layering hard and soft tooth tissue creating a corrugated grinding surface.

In the “old” horse, the amount of tooth below the gum line is shortened because this reserve is used up over time.  As early as 17 years and certainly by 25, most horses get the first lower cheek teeth worn down towards the bottom of the tooth.  Here an interesting thing happens.  There is more soft tooth exposed than hard tooth.  In addition, the hard tooth no longer is throughout the surface, but only on the edge of the soft tooth.  Add to this the constant tongue action eroding away the soft tooth and what is left is what I call “Old Horse Tooth”.

Have you seen a pocket knife with a folding blade serving as a can opener?  It is a curved edge that goes into the blade with a sharp inside edge.  The old horse tooth has a similar shape with the curve going across the tooth from the tongue side to the cheek side.  This edge can become incredibly sharp - like a razor blade. 

In the old days, a leather strap was used to rub the steel razor to maintain the sharp edge.  This was called stropping.  In the horse, the tongue strops the first lower cheek tooth and can create a very sharp, pain producing edge.

Often with my 25 year and older patients, the only teeth I float are the two lower first cheek teeth.  And the immediate comfort seen in the old, crotchety, “Get The Hell Out Of My Stall” grump horse is amazing.

Equine Dentistry Without Drama™ Articles by Geoff Tucker, DVM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.theequinepractice.com.
Blog by Geoff Tucker, DVM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.