What type of dental care is necessary?
Horses, like people, have baby teeth that are then replaced by a new set of teeth. This typically happens between the ages of 2 and 4 1/2. An adult male horse has 40 teeth, and female horse has 36 teeth. You often here the term “caps”, these are baby teeth. A horse dentist should work on a horse’s teeth every sixth months to a year. Wild horses grind their own teeth with their constant grazing, so have no need for a horse dentist. Only horses taken out of their natural habitat need a dentist. You can also determine a horse’s age by looking at its teeth, although this means of determining age becomes less accurate the older a horse gets. The phrase “floating a horse’s teeth” is commonly used when a horse is being worked on by the horse dentist.
