Always look your horse in the mouth...

From Jim: That old saying of not looking a gift horse in the mouth has to do with aging a horse by it's dental development. It's pretty accurate if you know what you're looking for up to about 20 or so. After that, the markers you look for are pretty much gone or amorphous and the guessing game gets sort of vague. That's not what this blog is about. This is about making sure your horse's teeth are able to do their very important work so that the animal can stay healthy and flourish. Used to be that the grit that was part of the grazing/eating process ground the chewing surfaces down and usually kept sharpies and points from developing. Also, horses didn't have the kind of care they get now and didn't live as long. They were usually still erupting teeth when their time came. We now see horses that have worn their teeth to gum and can only get by on sack feed. These guys are late 20's or older-sometimes a lot older. Genetics plays a role here. Some horses get really good teeth. Breeds like Arabians and Barbs will generally have good teeth. Same with some of the older Quarterhorse lines. Thoroughbreds and Warmbloods, not so much. There are, of course, individuals of all breeds that win the tooth lottery or get the booby prize. That's why you have to look at their teeth-often. They will fall off their weight pretty quickly if their arcades are sharp and causing cheek abscesses. Sometimes their occlusion is just out of shape and they can't grind roughage properly. A good float by a vet will always cost a lot less than the wasted food and health issues that bad teeth will create. Points and hooks and waves and the occasional abscessed or fractured tooth all need to be addressed by a Pro. This is not a good do-it-yourself project. Way back in the day, when I was an apprentice farrier, we did the floats, rasped by hand, used a rubber jaw block and a lip twitch to get the advantage over the critter, rasped away till the hooks were flat and called it good. Wolf teeth were clipped off with the hoof nippers. That's how it was back then. It was hard on horses, hard on us, and, though it helped, it was nothing compared to what a trained vet can do now. I guess knowing the difference makes me especially sensitive to why it's so important to get it right. Forty some odd years has seen some real improvements in the care of equines. I'm sure glad for that. I suppose the critters are too.