Another Dental Day

Today was another dentist day however it ended up not taking nearly as long as our dental day last week. The dentist couldn't stay as long today so she will back again tomorrow. Hopefully one more day next week will wrap up the teeth floating for awhile. The horses were all really good for their floats today which always makes for a nice day. The boys are clean from the inside out as they also had their sheaths cleaned.

I mentioned in my last post about a lot of the hoof pathologies that show up on the farm. If anything is amiss in their mouths it would seem that some people who float teeth do a really good job in the front of the mouth, but sometimes seem to not as good of a job or altogether skip the very back of the mouth. I always like to take a look and feel around in their mouths before and after floating so I can feel things for myself. Obviously I am not a dentist but I can look in there and see and feel hooks and points. A few of the residents have what are called "wave mouths" and a couple have what are called "shelf mouths." These things generally don't really effect the horse too much, but you do want to correct them as much as you can to help them masticate their food properly and have better wear on their teeth. However, one mistake that is easy to make is to do too much trying to correct things. It is very possible to remove too much and over float the teeth.

I've learned over the years if you want to see some heated debates among horse people two great topics of discussion to bring up are farrier care and dental care. You tend to hear a lot of extremes on these topics:
"I would never put shoes on my horse."
"I would never work a horse without shoes."
"I would never let someone use a power float in my horse's mouth."
Etc.

Personally I don't really like extremes about anything. I am more of a fan of evaluating each horse's needs and each practitioners work on an individual basis. That being said I am just as guilty as anyone else of having the words 'always' and 'never' in my vocabulary!

Elfin looking very satisfied - and very dirty - after a roll; you will recall that Elfin was a top a/o hunter

As always Elfin has to continue the fun when he rolls. He doesn't stand up and then lay back down to roll on the other side, he just sits up and does his 'dog walk' to roll on the other side. Here he is mid dog-walk.

Mr. O'Reilly and Lucky grazing. O'Reilly is an Irish bred horse who showed in the jumpers and Lucky was a trail horse.

The horses looked so peaceful together in their line-up. From front to back we have Trillion (national champion hunter), Winston (retired adult hunter), Asterik (retired from the hunters and the jumpers on the A circuit), Faune (big time show hunter) and Sebastian (another Irish bred horse who excelled at everything from fox hunting to jumpers). A lot of fancy horses in one picture!

Teddy; he is a Quarter Horse whose owner did some dressage with him

Lightening, the energize bunny trail horse

Sparky and Norman, two of the biggest personalities on the farm

Chili and Lucky were walking somewhere with a purpose

Sebastian, Asterik and Faune

Ogie, Winston and Trillion playing follow the leader through the pasture

Ogie napping while Asterik grazed