Tooth extraction - older horse

[Jknow]

I have a wonderful 24 year old pony, who was still ridden up until last weekend.

She has been booked into the vets on Wednesday as she has two wobbly molars, one very wobbly and one just a little bit. She’s quidding her haylage, but not badly, just once in a while and seems to manage pretty well. But the very wobbly one does need to come out for sure pretty soon so I’ve booked her in, the vet came out to assess her recently.

Stupidly I didn’t ask for a quote, and now I’ve scared myself witless by a random post I saw on fb re the cost of molar extraction in horses, which I gather can run into the thousands.

Naively I thought it would be in the ball park of when I paid, fairly recently, for a youngster to have a wolf tooth extracted, but I gather this can be a lot more complicated. Although having said that I’ve also read that with older horses who have shorter roots and teeth that are already loose it’s not overly complicated.

The plan is for her to go the the surgery, standing sedation, and then I can pick her up 3 hours later so I’m guessing they’re not anticipating it to be a massively long or complicated job.

Obviously I will phone them on Monday to get an idea, but wondered if others have had experience of a similar procedure and would mind sharing how much it cost?

To add to the complications, she’s had intermittent lameness for the last couple of months and so is not currently in work since it happened most recently last weekend, so that’s something else I am going to ask them to look at on Wednesday (I have told them this). But the most likely outcome is that she’s probably going to need to retire, given her age and known arthritic issues, and now whatever this is on top.

I’d love to keep her going and give her a nice retirement but at the same time I have to be realistic as a single parent, she’s not insured due to her age, and sadly I don’t have thousands to throw at vets bills. Really hoping that it will be feasible to keep her going though, as she’s very precious to me.

One of my horses had a molar extracted this year, she's 23. It was broken so had to come out, the vet did it at home with standing sedation and lots of painkillers. It took about 45 mins of basically him wiggling and pulling the tooth. It cost me about £1k I think including a follow up visit.
She did also colic very mildly in the few days after but that was sorted fairly easily. I think it was down to the time of year (january) more than anything and her not drinking quite enough which she is guilty of anyway.

Could you speak to an equine dentist instead and put the vet extraction on hold for now. I know dentists won't offer sedation/painkillers as only vets can do this, but they might advise on whether the tooth can be left.

I have an old (28) pony who had a loose tooth. But I have a monthly health plan with my vet that includes twice yearly dentals (including sedation) so it doesn't cost the earth. The vet didn't want to extract the tooth until it was ready to come out with just a wiggle. He was, in the meantime, eating fine. At the next 6 monthly dental exam the tooth had come out on its own! I guess I was just lucky.