Case Study: Diastemas

Leadon Lights aka Roxi is owned by Ali Brewer. Last year, despite being a young horse in good health, Roxi started to lose weight and began quidding. This is a problem more commonly seen in older horses and ponies where partially chewed saliva covered feed is dropped from the mouth.

After some considerable investigation it became apparent that feed was becoming trapped in the gaps or ‘diastemas’ between Roxi’s teeth causing infection. This was making it difficult for Roxi to chew and swallow hay, causing her to ‘quid’. After a procedure to widen the diastemas, hay was still becoming entwined around Roxi’s teeth and it was recommended that long stem forage should be completely removed from Roxi’s ration.

After seeking advice from the Dengie Nutritionists, Ali started to use Dengie Hi-Fi Senior alongside some soaked High Fibre Cubes to replace Roxi’s usual forage ration. Hi-Fi Senior combines short chop high temperature dried grasses and alfalfa and can be used as a complete hay replacement. As Roxi is at grass during the day and stabled over night Ali uses a total of 7kg of hay replacement per day. Ali feeds this in a large rubber bucket in the corner of Roxi’s stable for her to pick at as and when required and finds that like hay, feeding Hi-Fi Senior is a great way to keep Roxi occupied when stabled.

Over twelve months on from the initial dental procedure Roxi is now looking and feeling very well again. Roxi now maintains condition with ease and Ali is really looking forward to competing her this season.