Equine Dentistry

Equine Dentistry: Teaching anatomy, function, techniques involved in a thorough equine dental evaluation, and provide the attendees with real life ways of better understanding when a horse needs to see their dental professional. 2 CE hours - Cat 1: Clinical Presented by: Travis Collinsworth

The purpose of this presentation is to increase the general knowledge of what goes into a thorough Equine dentistry evaluation, what kinds of things to watch for in the a general equine practice, and identify common and easy to identify signs that a horse needs a dental evaluation. This presentation will cover supporting information regarding the development of teeth in a horse, normal anatomy of a horse’s mouth, common problems, and how they are addressed by a trained equine dentist. This presentation will consist of a combination of demonstration on real equine skulls, videos and pictures acquired over a 20+ year long career, and group discussion.

Outline:

1. 2-4 year old horses
   1. Structure of the tooth
   2. Size of the teeth
   3. Wear pattern of the teeth
   4. Caps/baby teeth
2. ​​​​​​​5 years and older
   1. ​​​​​​​2 points of balance in dentistry
      1. ​​​​​​​Incisors
      2. Molars
      3. TMJ
   2. ​​​​​​​Natural position to eat
      1. ​​​​​​​Head down and how teeth line up
      2. Head up and teeth unaligned
      3. Creates an unbalanced pattern
   3. ​​​​​​​Balance Molars
      1. ​​​​​​​Remove ETR, Ramps, Wave, etc.
      2. Install Bitseats
      3. Extract caps and wolfteeth
   4. ​​​​​​​Incisors
      1. ​​​​​​​Angles
      2. Wedge, realignment
3. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Explanation and recap
   1. ​​​​​​​Processing Feed
   2. Digestion
   3. Riding and bit comfort

This course has been approved by the IVCA.

This course has been approved by the AVCA for Category I credits.