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  Discussion on Is this a baby or permanent tooth that has these spots?
Author Message
Member:
zilpha

Posted on Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 - 3:46 am:

Hi. If anyone can help me, please feel free. My horse will be 3 years old this spring and I noticed that he has a black spot, more like a depression or cavity in his tooth just next to the central incisors.

I read Dr. O's article and I think it
is a baby tooth and should fall out eventually
but not sure. Here is a pic of the tooth and my horse, Smoke. I noticed he had this spot on his tooth last spring before I bought him but thought it was hopefully a baby tooth! Also, the very small teeth in the corners have some very small spots too. I know the front, center ones are new and came in this year. Just wondering about the rest.

My vet told me one time that often times ponies
have better teeth than horses and that is why
they usually live longer. He was floating my horses teeth and commented that my pony had the
best set so far and all were about the same age.

Anyway, Smoke is A BIG boy at a true 16 hands now. Have any of you seen a relationship between a horses size and his overall dental health? Why do some ponies live longer? Maybe big isn't always better as far as teeth goes! Also, I have
well water that is not floridated. Does the floride also help horses teeth during development? I am not suggesting buying bottled
water for my horse but are there any studies about floride in horses? Does it help?

Thanks!

tooth in question

Smoke
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 - 7:36 am:

Hello Michael,
Unfortunately your photo does not have enough focus/detail for us to tell what we are looking at but such spots are often iron staining from the mineral in the grass.

In general smaller horses are sturdier in all ways, not just dental health. We have just relatively recently been breeding larger and larger horses and each step up makes for a bit less sturdiness in at least in two ways:
1) Increase proportion of "mass" to "support of the mass". Or said another way, as horses get larger the weight increases faster (cubes) than support of the weight (squares).
2) Increase concentration of some genes, including "weak" ones.

There is no reason to think fluoride would not benefit horse teeth as it does humans however caries is not the same problem in horses because there is not as much mono and disaccarides (simple sugars) in their diet to feed the bacteria that cause caries.
DrO
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