VSR 421: Regional Veterinary Surgery (2+1)

TOOTH RASPING

• Equine dentistry is becoming highly specialised and rapid advances in the techniques are available. The most common dental preventative treatment that is routinely performed in adult horses is "rasping" or "floating" the cheek teeth.
• The teeth located in the cheek area (back of the mouth) can develop spurs and sharp edges over time. These points can cause pain, difficulty chewing and eating problems. These edges of the teeth are ground off with a metal instrument.
• All horses and ponies require their teeth to be rasped at regular intervals because the teeth continually grow throughout their life. Young horses whose teeth erupt faster will require rasping every six to eight months, as will any horse with a dental abnormality.
• Older horses with normal dental conformation will generally require a dental check, plus possibly rasping every year. Horses with mouth conformation problems and some geriatric horses may need care more often, especially if they have lost some teeth.
• Horses will need to be sedated for teeth extraction or where complicated dentistry is required.
• Dental rasping is a procedure that uses "dental floats" – hand-held instruments comprising a handle and a head.

Techniques

• restrain the animal
• hold the tongue out of the mouth.
• Apply the rasp to the outer border of the lower molars
• Repeat the procedure periodically to get the desired effect.