Drooling

STEVE: Unlike other species the horse doesn’t drool, like, for instance like a dog would in order, you know, in order for you, like, when you feed it or prior to it. They’re not like Pavlov’s dogs.

They don’t, they don’t overtly, you know, produce a lot of saliva just because you ring the dinner bell. If a horse is drooling where you can see it, obviously the first thing you, should come into mind, is, you know the thing I see most commonly is some sort of irritant or some sort of trauma to the mouth and or tongue.

Usually if their teeth sometimes are extremely long and haven’t been addressed for a long time, they’ll cut their tongue and they drool because of that cause it cuts into the tongue, it creates quite a bit of irritation or swelling.

Or if the outside of the upper arcade is, they are really, really long and very, very sharp they’ll cut into the cheek. And that will also cause drooling. And one thing that I see commonly is that if you introduce a new bit or you have something or, or you traumatize the mouth somehow due to a splinter, metal or something, foreign object they’re taking in. If they traumatize or cut the tongue for whatever reason, that create quite a bit of drooling.

And another thing we see is sometimes some sort of irritant or things they will have a reaction to in their mouth, they happen to get a hold of something, some area of grass that’s been sprayed, hay that’s been sprayed with some sort of irritant that they are not either used to or they are having a local reaction to, that can create drooling as well. So it’s something you want to get look at and a sign that you want to get a look at it right away. It’s not something you want to let go on for extended period of time.