Dental Exfoliation and Eruption Chronology in Beagles

Abstract

Daily observations of deciduous tooth exfoliation and permanent tooth gingival emergence were conducted on 15 male and 12 female closely related purebred Beagles from 5 litters. Central tendency and variability statistics for males and females and for the sexes pooled were derived for post-coital age at deciduous tooth exfoliation, permanent tooth emergence and the interval between exfoliation and emergence. Deciduous teeth were usually shed between the 176th and 244th postcoital days, gingival emergence of permanent teeth occurred between the 180th and 241st postcoital days and the interval between the 2 phenomena ranged from a mean exfoliation precedence of 5 days to a mean gingival emergence precedence of 27 days. Significant differences (P< 0. 05 in 2-tailed tests) were found between males and females in mean age at exfoliation for 2 of 14 deciduous tooth classes, in mean age at gingival emergence in 9 of 21 tooth classes and between mean exfoliation-emergence intervals in 1 of 14 deciduous to permanent exchange classes.