Does a horse eating a sweet treat or sweetened grain, cause him to have cavities?
No, not normally. Although a veterinary dentist who has a practice in an area that grows sugar cane mentioned that a lot of his client’s horses were fed sugar cane after the harvest. He did feel that he had a higher incidence of dental caries (cavities) in those horses. For most of us though, feeding sugar cane is not an option. Our horses develop the decay that they do, because the infundibula, which is part of the structure of the tooth, is occasionally underdeveloped and is an easier place for food to pack and start the decay process. That is commonly called infundibular decay, and it is located on the central part of the chewing surface (occlusal) of the cheek teeth (premolars and molars). Another area that we have found decay, is on the incisors, usually the result of a trauma. On one 6 year old’s incisor that we filled, the dentin (outside of tooth) was compromised and decay was able to start in the tooth that moved into the pulp cavity.
No, not normally. Although a veterinary dentist who has a practice in an area that grows sugar cane mentioned that a lot of his client’s horses were fed sugar cane after the harvest. He did feel that he had a higher incidence of dental caries (cavities) in those horses. For most of us though, feeding sugar cane is not an option. Our horses develop the decay that they do, because the infundibula, which is part of the structure of the tooth, is occasionally underdeveloped and is an easier place for food to pack and start the decay process. That is commonly called infundibular decay, and it is located on the central part of the chewing surface (occlusal) of the cheek teeth (premolars and molars). Another area that we have found decay, is on the incisors, usually the result of a trauma. On one 6 year old’s incisor that we filled, the dentin (outside of tooth) was compromised and decay was able to start in the tooth that moved into the pulp cavity. As we drilled out the decay, we found that
