Characterization and Prevalence of Oral Diseases in Creole Horse, Department of Caldas, Colombia

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to characterize and estimate the prevalence of oral diseases in working horses in the Department of Caldas, Colombia. The variables, presence or absence of a disease in the oral cavity, body condition (BC), age, gender, species (mule or horse) and type of food were recorded. To analyze the information, four age groups were created: young adult, mature, old. They were divided into three groups according to BC: poor or thin (1-2-3), healthy (4-5-6) and obese (7-8-9), and three feeding groups were observed: type 1, forage; type 2, forage + concentrated food, and type 3, forage + products made from sugar cane (cachaza). All the analysis were performed using SAS software. The prevalence of each disease was calculated using Chi-square (c2). The effect of age groups, BC and feeding on the various oral diseases was evaluated by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The significance level was set at p <0.05. The prevalence of oral disease found was 76.5% (n = 400). Thirtytwo (32) different oral abnormalities were diagnosed. BC and age had a significant effect on the likelihood of association to oral disease (p < 0.01). The effect of feeding type on the likelihood of oral disease was significant (p = 0.04), while the effects of gender and species were not. The horses studied had not received any previous dental treatment, which is an important field for professionals in the region.