TEETH 

Jaw Abscesses
The most common tooth problem noticed by owners is a persistent swelling in the face, usually, but not always, in the lower jaw.  On investigation, this may be hard or soft, depending on whether bony tissue is involved, but generally it persists and enlarges over time, because it’s almost always an abscess.  Usually this starts by being centred around a tooth, but can, if untreated, track into the jawbone and even into the soft tissues of the head and neck.  Other symptoms of tooth problems can be loss of weight, reluctance to feed, dropping feed out of the mouth, and foul smelling breath.  Abscesses don’t usually discharge to the outside, although they can, especially when apparently caused by a failure of eruption of permanent teeth (observed in two cases to my own knowledge).  Any of these symptoms, if they persist, should be investigated by your Vet.

Treatment of tooth and jaw abscesses is difficult, because once the infection gets into the bone, it can be very hard to shift.  The best success is seen with the removal of the affected tooth and any infected bone associated with it under anaesthetic, plus antibiotics, but repeated operations can be necessary to eradicate infection.  Expect a big bill and an uncertain outcome.  Use of a relatively new antibiotic, flurfenicol (trade name Nuflor) has been associated with a successful outcome when used early on in the disease.

Prevention
The best you can do here is to reduce what are called “risk factors”.  These include:

• Avoid spiky hay and forage.  Hay made from cereal crops is not common in this country but has been associated with increased incidence in America.  Some plants have hard barbed seeds which will tend to get into the gums and track down beside the teeth, taking infection down with them and starting the abscess off.  It has been noted that Peruvian grass is extremely spiky, and has been speculated that grazed forage may be less of a risk that that fed as hay.  Having said that, jaw abscesses are well recognized in South America.  There they almost always result in casualty slaughter of the animal because treatment is uneconomic.
  
• Trim overgrown incisor crowns; David Anderson from Ohio thinks that excessively long incisors cause a mismatch between the molars and that predisposes to problems with their roots.  However, over zealous trimming can damage the pulp and cause disease by letting infection in. It’s recommended that fighting teeth should have a 2mm crown left behind, to avoid cutting into the pulp cavity.
  
• Don’t rasp molar teeth as a routine, because it removes the normal sharp cutting edge of the tooth and reduces its grinding effectiveness.

CASE HISTORIES
In a series of four cases of jaw osteomyeltis ( deep bone infection) which were treated by Martyn Jose, radical treatment, creating a large drainage wound and extracting the affected teeth under general anaesthetic was employed.  In one instance the only symptom had been weight loss, and by the time the abscess was evident visually, the jaw bone was too badly eroded to be treated.

Very occasionally a face abscess can arise in soft tissue, not involving the jaw bone.  Sometimes the parotid salivary gland is involved, but in any event these non-bone abscesses have a much better prognosis.

Other possible causes of jaw swellings are tumours, salivary cysts and stings/bites:  Your Vet is the best person to sort out what is going on.

JAW ABSCESS RESPONDING TO MEDICAL TREATMENT.  [Chris Cebra uses Nuflor (florfenicol) antibiotic for jaw disease because a dose lasts 4 days].  A 3-4 week old cria  suddenly developed a swelling on its jaw.  It was rejected by its mother and started to eat fibrous food very early.  It recovered with nuflor treatment and avoided the need for surgery. (The dose was 1ml per 10kg body weight.)

Helen MacDonald reported the case of a 2 and a half year old wether which impacted chaff near a premolar in a pocket.  This animal required surgery to remove the tooth and debride the socket, but did recover.

Choke
In this condition the animal swallows inadequately chewed food which lodges in the oesophagus (gullet) and fails to pass into the stomach, causing a blockage.

This can occur especially if greedy or dominant animals are competing over titbits like apples, and fatal choke involving an apple lodged in the oesophagus, which it was not possible to remove, has been seen.  Ensure that such keenly sought foods are shaped in long thin pieces which will not get stuck.  Signs of choke are drooling, obvious distress and discomfort , failure to eat or drink