Talk:Horse teeth

There were two marked inaccuracies in the previous article. Canine teeth are predominantly found only in male horses and wolf teeth are nothing to do with fighting. They are extremely small, vestigial and could not cause any significant damage. Malcolm Morley 20:44, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Household cyclopedia
The article struck me as strange; I found here where it came from, apparently, so I added to the bottom, Part of this article was excerpted from The Household Cyclopedia of General Information, published in 1881. This tag may help readers decide how much they need to be concerned about dishonest horse dealers bishoping the horses' teeth. Tempshill 00:51, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Material to be Merged from Horse article
Below is material taken from the horse article when it was cut down. If anything here needs to go into the main article, go ahead and add. However, most of it is redundant to what's there already. 150.131.160.21 (talk) 23:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

An adult female horse usually has 36-38 teeth. An adult male horse usually has 40-42 teeth. By the time a horse has reached the age of five they are considered to have a full mouth (all of their permanent teeth are present).

Horses have indentions on the bottom of their incisors called cups that are the result of wear on their teeth. Age can be judged by looking at the size of the cups, the smaller the cups the older the horse. Eventually all the cups will disappear. This generally occurs when the horse is at the age of 12 years. The cups are replaced by dental stars. Occasionally the cups are retained, when this is happens the cup is now called a cap.

Another method of telling the age of a horse is by looking at galvayne's groove. Galvayne's groove is a line that appears a on the corner incisors of the maxillary bone when the horse reaches the age of 10 years. By the time the horse has reached 15 years the line has extended to the middle of the tooth. At the age of 20 years the line is at the bottom of the tooth. At the age of 25 years the line is once again half way up the tooth and disappears completely when the horse reaches the age of 30.

Age can also be determined by the shape of the teeth. A younger horse will have smaller teeth in a triangular shape. Older horses have long rectangular teeth. Older horses also have darker teeth. The angle at which the bottom and top incisors meet is also a good indication of age. The smaller the angle the older the horse.

Long in the tooth
Article is currently a little light on background of the phrase "long in the tooth". Some light googling gave me some pretty good info, including it's original origins in Latin and then separately in English in the 1800's. Would such be appropriate here, or should I start a separate article? Long in the tooth currently redirects here. //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 22:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Hm. Maybe propose what you want to insert here on the talk page as a rough draft/sandbos and if it winds up getting lengthy, it can go to a new article using the old title, but if it turns out to be only a paragraph or so, it possibly could fit here.  I guess I can see it either way, let's just do up the info and see where it will work best!   Montanabw (talk) 23:08, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

A horse's teeth erupt continuously throughout their lifetime. Teeth originally appear as a round shape, then progress through a triangular phase, and finally rectangular at age 18-20. Galvayne's groove appears at the gum line on the lateral aspect of the third incisor at approximately 10 years of age. As the horse ages and the incisors continue to erupt, the groove grows with it, appearing "long in the tooth", and extends from the gum line to the tooth edge by age 20. From age 20 to 30, Galvayne's groove ceases to develop. During this phase, the groove no longer appears at the gum line and slowly progresses on its journey to the tooth edge as the tooth grows out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.89.243.247 (talk) 17:31, 6 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm of mixed feelings about adding a trivia section here. Is there a place where we can put all these equestrian slang terms? There must be hundreds of them...  (I'm also thinking about "champing at the bit")?  Actually, a list article of all of these might be fun?  Montanabw (talk) 22:45, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

References and more information
There isn't really any references in the section on dental problems. This article might be useful for anyone who wants to take the time to improve it. It is an overview of a lot of equine dentistry studies up until 2008. Or should some of the section be moved to the article about equine dentistry? /Pastisch (talk) 16:20, 23 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that a link to the equine dentistry article with a summary here is ideal, though I admit I don't have the time right now to focus on research for either of these particular articles, but if you want to take a whack at one or both, I'd be glad to support and provide supplemental edits or constructive commentary.  Montanabw (talk) 20:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Sources:


 * http://www.thehorse.com/articles/38622/back-to-basics-dental-anatomy
 * http://www.thehorse.com/articles/35289/equine-dental-exams-in-five-easy-steps
 * http://www.thehorse.com/articles/38881/minding-the-great-tooth-transition-in-horses?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=in-depth&utm_campaign=08-11-2017

More source material:
 * https://thehorse.com/148268/evolution-equids-dental-work/