RE: Equine dentist or vet?

["Kathy Mayeda" <kathy_mayeda@atce.com>]

I think it depends on the horse.  I have had dental work done badly
by the veterinarian and paid $425 for it!  I subsequently took him
to another vet who has had further training in dentistry, and paid
$120 for a good "dremel" job, tranqs and all, but I had to trailer 
an hour to get to this vet.  I have also had a dental tech come out 
and removed wolf teeth and floated for $50, but they tranq'd 
illegally (for CA) and I have subsequently heard negative
things about this couple.

Beau has a parrot mouth and needs corrective work twice a year.  And
the only reason I know this is that if I don't do it, I have to call
the equine chiropractor out, and then she always says that he needs
dental work in order to stay straight!  So my Beau is a high 
maintenance dude.  I was happy with the last vet and expect it to cost
a similar amount with subsequent floatings. Hopefully your horses
are not as high maintenance.  Maybe it would be worthwhile to check
other vets to see if they had more advanced training in dental techniques.


Kathy




-----Original Message-----
From: Bob & Amber Roberts [mailto:mlaboure@flash.net]
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 9:02 PM
To: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: Equine dentist or vet?


We took our horses to an equine dentist today and are now wondering
whether or not this is really necessary.  It is extremely expensive
compared to having the vet float teeth.  We want to do what is best for
our horses so that they will live a long, healthy life.  We used the
equine dentist for the first time last year.  Had never heard of this
method before then.  One horse had quite a lot of work done then, so I
had assumed this time would be some normal maintenance.  Well, the bill
was $105 for this one horse plus a separate bill from the vet for
tranquilization.  If any of you have used an equine vet for several
years, does the cost ever get reasonable or is it pretty expensive every
year?  Do you feel you get that much better a job from the dentist as
compared to a vet just floating?

Amber


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.    
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp   
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=