Browsing by Subject "hammassairaudet"

The objective of this study was to investigate the associations between nutritional factors and the incidence of peripheral caries and other oral diseases in Finnish horses. Peripheral caries was chosen as the main subject of this study because of its wide prevalence in horse population. Peripheral caries is also a risk factor for other oral diseases, and it is thought to express well the effects of feeding to teeth. The aim of this study was also to find out how the Finnish horse population is fed. The study was carried out as questionnaire at Porvoon Hevosklinikka. Horse owners filled the questionnaire according to the information from oral exam done by veterinarians. Oral exams were carried out by two Specialists in Veterinary Medicine, Equine Diseases. Of the 94 horses included in this study, 79% (n=74) had been diagnosed with peripheral caries by a veterinarian. The incidence of peripheral caries was significantly associated with breed and use of hay net. All (n=12) of the warmblood trotters in this study had peripheral caries. Most of the horses (95 %, n=22) that ate their roughage from hay net had peripheral caries. Only 35 % of the horse owners had access to feed analysis of roughages fed to their horses. As much as 85 % of the horses whose owners did not have access to feed analysis had peripheral caries. Some symptoms in eating behavior and riding or driving behavior have been connected to pain at cheek teeth. In this study 37 % of owners reported that horses did not have any of these symptoms. Most (83 %, n=29) of these horses however had peripheral caries. Because of the small sampling and reference group more study of this subject is needed. According to this study most of the Finnish horse owners do not have feed analysis of their roughage and therefore they cannot plan the feeding based on the analysis. Despite this almost all (96%) of the horses in this study had their feeding supplemented with concentrates.