Wellness & Rehab Services

Dental Services

The teeth of horses erupt throughout their lifetimes. In the wild, horses eat only forage which, as they grind it back and forth, tends to wear their teeth in a more advantageous way than the grain necessary in a more demanding performance horse's diet. Furthermore, wild horses do not need their teeth conformed to best accommodate a bit, and they die at an earlier age because they succumb to predators and a harsh environment.

Riding horses need to have their teeth attended to at least once a year, to make sure that the knife-sharp edges or "hooks" that develop on the outside of the upper teeth and the inside of the lower teeth, do not interfere with chewing, cut up the inside of the mouth, or make the bit uncomfortable causing behavioral problems.

Cheryl Cobb

Cheryl Cobb, with her gentle, professional manner and significant expertise is our Equine Dentist and practices her trade at our farm under the supervision of our resident veterinarian, Dr. Chris Benyei. Cheryl has always kept horses and initially wanted to be a game warden so she obtained a B.A. in Conservation. However, life is what happens when you are planning something else, so she ended up becoming a human operating room technician. She then changed course and became an equine O.R. tech and finally, of all things, a human dental technician. But as she continued to be drawn to the horse world, she began riding with veterinarians, one of whom introduced her to equine dentistry. Cheryl then attended the Academy of Equine Dentistry in Glenn Ferry, Idaho where she continues to return as an instructor every year.

While Cheryl was originally trained to float teeth in the traditional manner with hand floats, she now finds that power floats allow her to perform more advanced dentistry. With power floats she can not only level the ramps that develop on the last molars which prevent the horse for properly flexing at the pole, but she can also level the front incisors when a horse has developed a wedge mouth which prevents even chewing, as well as correct the problems associated with parrot mouth. It is also possible for her to cut teeth that have become overgrown because of the loss of an opposing tooth.