Soft teeth - how come - can they be hardened?

[Lieslot]

Hmmm, had the dentist out and he commented on how soft my one horse's teeth are.
Of course now this has me worried that perhaps it's abnormally soft.
Anyone ever heard that? This is really a new one to me.
Is there anything I can do to help harden his teeth?

He get's a magnesium supplement, could he be lacking calcium now, hence the soft teeth?

Edited to add, he's an 11yr WB.

[sublimequine]

I think I'd call the dentist and ask if it's a concern or not, first. :)

[Lieslot]

I asked him during the visit, but he didn't say much. I mentioned the magnesium and he said, could be.
Just said because of the soft teeth he needs to go on a shorter schedule.

I'm not sure whether he really had an answer why his teeth were so soft, hence I'm asking around if anyone else had heard this before and "if" anything can be done or if this is just going to be what my horse's teeth are like from now on.

This is the first year this remark was made.

[sublimequine]

I asked him during the visit, but he didn't say much. I mentioned the magnesium and he said, could be.
Just said because of the soft teeth he needs to go on a shorter schedule.

I'm not sure whether he really had an answer why his teeth were so soft, hence I'm asking around if anyone else had heard this before and "if" anything can be done or if this is just going to be what my horse's teeth are like from now on.

This is the first year this remark was made.

Ah okay. I've never really hard of soft teeth, so I can't help ya much. Hope you can find someone on here with some experience! :)

[JB]

I've actually recently had this conversation with my vet who specializes in dentistry.

According to her, teeth are softer when younger, and normally harden with age. However, some are born with harder teeth, some have softer teeth their whole lives.

At 11, it's highly unlikely your horse's teeth will harden any.

The softer teeth are easier to float, obviously, but are also subject to issues due to the smallest deviations in chewing patterns. It's especially important for softer-toothed horses to have grass as their main forage - for some reason the general chewing pattern of grass (yes, as opposed to hay) produces the most even wear (in general!). Hay is the next best, and "hard feeds" are the worst due to a fairly different chew pattern.

So, you get what you get.

[MunchkinsMom]

Hopefully you are not dealing with something as drastic as this:

Enamel Hypoplasia:

http://www.advancedequinedentist.com/enamel_hypoplasia

Other than what is shown in the link above, this is the first I have heard of soft teeth in horses.

[bntnail]

How many times in the past has his teeth been floated w/ power equipment?I know that if heat builds in the teeth during floating,it can cause damage.Don't remember if softening, or other damage. Maybe good question for your vet.

[Lieslot]

Bntnail : this was the 2nd time of powerfloating, in the past he just had a regular float.

I always had him on sweet feed and about 5 months ago switched him to TC Senior. Hope it's not related, shouldn't be really.
Other then that ad lib soaked hay and some TC forage and daytime grazing (or nighttime in summer)

Because of the softness, at the back he seems to be have indents in the chewing surface, like a wavey line of teeth, one tooth higher then the other. The dentist adjusted it and on the lower indented tooth, he made sure to lowered the opposing tooth, so it doesn't get any worse.

It's just weird that this is the first year this is brought to my attention and I'm just concerned about the Magnesium/Calcium, but after googling (for hours last night), I didn't really come up with much, even in humans.

I guess, see what his teeth will be like next time he's due.

MunchkinsMom, that is indeed bad, no luckily enough we aren't dealing with this bad a picture ...... yet. It does kind of read as if this might be what's happing in my horse's case to some extent. It doesn't really say how come. I'll google Enamel Hypoplasia some more & see what pops up. Thank you for that!

[HoofHeartSoul]

usually you don't see soft teeth much in horse or people.

but it does happen,

in humans its sometimes from too acidic enviroment in the mouth/food, too little calcium or too much of a mineral that inhibits calcium from being absorbed.

in humans it could also be from drug use (prescription or not) while being formed in the womb... but this usually doesn;'t happen with horses lol


if it were me i would add more calcium horses can readily stand and stay helathy on a calcium to phosphorus ratio up to 5:1 perhaps more.

BUT if it has an inverted calcium/phos ratio it will start to take calcium out of teeth,bone etc etc.

so yeah i would up the calcium, can't hurt, might help.

[RAyers]

Yes, magnesium can weaken calcium phosphate. It substitutes in the Ca2+ position and results in a weaker bond between the surrounding phosphate groups.

Yes, I do tooth mineralization/demineralization research with the University of Colorado School of Dentistry.

Given that horses already have a somewhat "softer" enamel (approximately 80 GPa for horses as compared to 116 GPa for human enamel), a change in its compositional nature such as substituted magnesium could result in even "softer" teeth. Dental enamel gets its ions from the saliva and if it is Mg rich instead of Ca, the Mg will migrate into the tooth. Tooth enamel does not harden from the inside so it is the salivary calcium and phosphate (PO4) you need to think about.

Also, remember, a horse's teeth evolved to wear in order for the horse to eat plants covered in abrasive dirt and sand. By being "softer" than human enamel, you prevent shattering of the tooth, like biting into a popcorn kernel unexpectedly.

My opinion, stop giving magnesium. Simple and easy.

Reed


I asked him during the visit, but he didn't say much. I mentioned the magnesium and he said, could be.
Just said because of the soft teeth he needs to go on a shorter schedule.

I'm not sure whether he really had an answer why his teeth were so soft, hence I'm asking around if anyone else had heard this before and "if" anything can be done or if this is just going to be what my horse's teeth are like from now on.

This is the first year this remark was made.

[JSwan]

Question -

How can an owner determine whether or not their horse is receiving the optimum amount of vitamins and minerals?

Lots of us are supplementing with selenium, magnesium, "herbals", or other substances in an effort to optimize health.. without performing blood tests to determine if supplementation is necessary.

So.... before snatching product A and B off the shelf - do y'all recommend we obtain blood tests from the vet? I don't have "high" performance horses - just one current field hunter who works terribly hard, one up and coming horse that is going to work terribly hard - and one off and on again retired eventer.

There is a great deal of conflicting information out there and for those who are OCD about conditioning and fitness it's a bit frustrating. I've still not seen any published studies on chromium use in equines - just pigs. Don't mean to hijack the OP's thread but her post just made me curious.

Thanks.

[Lieslot]

Rayers & Dressage Junkie, thanks, I will stop the Mg for the time being.

JSwan 'totally' agree with your question. This is on my mind all the time. We try to fix one thing or help improve our horses, but we just don't know if we end up creating other imbalances... Perhaps we need a separate thread on this.

I often wonder whether I ought to go back to basics, hay + standard pellet and nada more.
I also supplement chromium (and Mg, Sel, Vit E, Omega 3's, Vit C etc...) all of this with the best intentions, but I'm also very concerned that our best intentions might actually do more harm then good.
Perhaps my boy's soft teeth should be the alarmbell to me really....

I'm not sure you can bloodtest for all of this. The suggestion seems to be to test hay and then add up the supplements. But what about those of us that have a hay supplier that delivers a different batch each time, surely we can't go testing every couple of months.......

[merrygoround]

Have you discussed this with your veterinarian?

The fact that a person has dental floats, and power equipment, does not of itself make him knowledgeable. While there are many good"dentists" out there, many are no more qualified than some of are foot care posters.

[Lieslot]

I understand, some dentists are just that, dentists.
I haven't brought it up with my regular vets just yet, will bring it up upon a next visit.
But I doubt my regular vets will have more to say to it.
This is an excellent dentist and he "is" a veterinarian himself, eventhough he decided to only practise dentistry, he is a veterinarian with years of experience and certainly very knowledgeable.

It's not that his teeth are insanely bad and he can't eat and his mouth is falling apart. Not at all, his mouth looks good now, but nevertheless I didn't expect to hear this comment.
My other horse who does not get the Magnesium, still has the same hard teeth he always had.
My biggest concern about it all is really like the question JSwan brought up here, are we safe supplementing with what we supplement.
Is this something I brought upon this horse because I'm causing imbalances by what I feed him and if so will it get worse if I continue just as I do now.

He's in overal good health otherwise, good footgrowth, hard feet, well muscled etc. He's just supplemented and fed as if he had EPSM and over the course of the last year, I increased Mg supplementation, added more Vit E, some more oil, took away sugars & starch etc etc.
Related or not related, I don't know, hence I'm asking around and getting others' opinions.

I was just wondering if others have horses with soft teeth too and my question then of course is : do you feed Magnesium?

[morehorses]

Just as a side note, I really don't think you are dealing with enamel hypoplasia. This is a pathology that occurs during enamel formation - the body is so stressed during enamel formation (from extreme systemic stress from any number of things including malnutrition, starvation, disease, etc.) that the enamel forming cells actually pause in the process of laying down enamel. When the body recovers, enamel formation starts again, but a permanent line or pit is left in the tooth (teeth) corresponding to the time of stress. Where the pit or line is, it will be weaker or 'softer', and more susceptible to disease, because it will have drastically less enamel, but the rest of the tooth should not be affected by the hypoplasia - in other words, away from the hypoplasia, the enamel will be whatever it was destined to be (hardness-wise - destined from genetics, environment, biology). At least, this is the way it works for most animals (I am not specifically knowledgeable about horse hypoplasia). Hypoplasia can also have a genetic etiology.

It sounds like your horse has poor enamel quality (and therefore his teeth lack hardness). There is a surprising amount of variation in quality of enamel...I have met people with poor enamel, and with them, it causes all sorts of problems. I would imagine there is nothing you can do to increase hardness because, although horse teeth continue to erupt through life, the teeth are already formed (enamel is already done - there is no changing what was already laid down). Best of luck to you!

[Lieslot]

Morehorses thanks for this reply, very informative.
I'll stop breaking my head over it for now and see what what his teeth become like in a few months.