Colic and Dental Care

The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Health Monitoring System Equine ’98 study revealed that in 1997 over half of kept horses did not receive dental care.

This study ranked colic the second cause of equine deaths with old age leading at number one. Eleven percent of all these colic incidences resulted with fatalities. While the causes of the colics were inconclusive, dental problems were directly related to certain types of colic.

Free range horses travel 30 to 40 miles per day foraging for grass, grazing for at least 12 hours out of the day. Horses that we keep confined don’t have this freedom. And, although we do our best to keep them healthy and happy, we simply cannot mimic nature. Often stalled horses are fed only twice a day and rarely have any opportunity to use their incisors, or front teeth. Consequently, the incisors outgrow the molars for these cheek teeth wear grinding hay and grain.

Take a look at your horse’s feces. There should not be any stems of hay longer than 1/4 inch. There should not be any recognizable grain. What you should see are tight, glossy balls of manure.

If your horse has stems and grain in his manure, there is a good probability that he needs complete dental work that addressed his incisors as well as the rest of his mouth.