Incisors

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Inene

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Please can you share your thoughts on whether your dentist floats the incisors and canines or just the molars and also should the incisors be nice and straight and even or should they be uneven with ridges and each tooth a different shape and angle?

Thanks
 
I would not expect the dentist to touch the incisors, sometimes the canines are very sharp and need taking down, if they rasp the incisors they are going to have to take even more off the molars to enable the horse to chew effectively, they "trim" the incisors themselves naturally every time they take a bite of grass, the only reason the molars require rasping is due to them wearing unevenly when chewing, although in my experience many hardly need any intervention and just have a minor amount done on their annual checks although obviously some do require more.
The incisors do sometimes wear unevenly, get chipped or go at an incorrect angle, this can be for many reasons and depending on that reason may be best left alone, I have one here that came in from racing with a very odd angle to his incisors, probably from the way he was eating, they have been left alone and are now 3 years later just about level, the dentist has not touched them.

Every horse has a finite amount of tooth, every time some is rasped away the life of that tooth is reduced, therefore it may reduce the life of the horse or at least it's ability to eat normally to a degree.
 
Thank you I agree with all that especially the last statement. I think mine were done due to parrot mouth and each having a different angle and a few other issues in the mouth but now they are perfectly straight and aligned . Vet says they shouldn't be?
 
Some American trained EDT's do rasp the incisors they are much keener on adjusting bite than we are over here .
 
Inene said:
Thank you I agree with all that especially the last statement. I think mine were done due to parrot mouth and each having a different angle and a few other issues in the mouth but now they are perfectly straight and aligned . Vet says they shouldn't be?
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His parrot mouth will prevent a "perfect" bite, he will have to compensate for his jaw, it is as you know not his teeth that cause the parrot mouth so for a dentist to try and correct it was wrong, it is a bit like a farrier trying to make a horses foot straight when it's leg is causing the conformation problem, they adapt to balance themselves and intervention sometimes makes matters far worse.

Over time your horse will get his teeth back how he needs them and hopefully he will cope ok until then, interesting that Gs says American dentists do rasp incisors, as a nation they like perfection in most things so it makes sense they will want a perfect set of equine teeth to go with their own.
 
Oh boy that's not good news. That's what the vet said . The teeth look all lovely and straight like a 3 year old again but that's not how they are meant to be. He had hooks, ramps, waves , protuberant cheek teeth and long sharp canines and sharp cheek teeth and a deviating left mandible and something about a diagnal 300 ? Incisor and the realignment was marked at 80%. So there could be another reason for doing the incisors but the canine was just buffed.
 
I think there is a difference between shortening the incisors and evening out and correcting bumps etc. I am hoping it was the later that was done.
 
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I also found this which is what the dentist described so probably not a true Perot mouth at all . Minor overbite...

The floating must be certain to address the associated overgrowths of teeth which arise and encourage the backwards displacement of the Mandible (jaw). These overgrowths include lipping of the incisors, hooks on the cheek teeth and excessive transverse ridges on the cheek teeth.
 
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