Continuous Eruption and Loss
A horse's incisors, premolars, and molars, once fully developed, continue to erupt as the grinding surface is worn down through chewing. A young adult horse's teeth are typically 4.5–5 inches long, but the majority of the crown remaining below the gumline in the dental socket. The rest of the tooth slowly emerges from the jaw, erupting about 1/8" each year, as the horse ages. When the animal reaches old age, the crowns of the teeth are very short and the teeth are often lost altogether. Very old horses, if lacking molars to chew, may need soft feeds to maintain adequate levels of nutrition.
Older horses may appear to have a lean, shallow lower jaw, as the roots of the teeth have begun to disappear. Younger horses may seem to have a lumpy jaw, due to the presence of permanent teeth within the jaw.
Read more about this topic: Horse Teeth
Famous quotes containing the words continuous, eruption and/or loss:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century. Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them—as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself, can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper, and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog, than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)