Will It Float? Equine Dental Care...

From Jim: As horses age, their teeth require care. The improvements in health care, better nutrition, and wiser overall care have extended horses' life spans. Their teeth came along for the ride. Without the abrasive grit from constant grazing, the grinding surfaces can and do become uneven, wavy, hooked, or misaligned. This makes chewing inefficient and the digestive process less able to maintain the animal's needs. Weight loss, less energy, and discomfort from "cudding" and unchewed hay accumulating in the cheeks all start occurring. Without dental care, eventually the combined results end with an ill horse, and may lead to death. Dental care includes examining the condition of the teeth and checking for broken or abscessed teeth which might need extraction. The cheeks are checked for abrasion or abscesses from sharp teeth (hooks). The overall health of the oral cavity is evaluated. Floating, an art all of it's own, is accomplished with rasps or grinding tools which flatten and smooth the the chewing surfaces for the correct amount of chewing contour. The equines' teeth are layered vertically with dentin and enamel. The softer material wears, leaving ridges of harder enamel to grind and breakdown the cellulose vegetable matter horses eat. When floated properly, you can hear the healthy chewing process when you manually move the horse's jaw in a chewing motion. We've all enjoyed the peaceful and relaxing sound of our horse busy with eating. How often should a horse's teeth be floated? Depends on the horse. A dental exam should be part of the annual vet check every horse, mule, or donkey needs. With geldings, it's also a perfect time for a sheath cleaning, as a thorough dental exam will generally require sedation. We've had 2 year olds with sharp teeth and 25 year olds with no issues. Age is not a reliable guideline. The old saying of never looking a gift horse in the mouth, comes from aging horses based on a groove on their incisors. With practice, you can get pretty good at it. The savings in wasted food and supplements, and the overall well-being of the horse more than offset the cost of proper dental care. A mixed blessing is that now horses live long enough to finally just wear out their teeth. When worn to the gum line there's not much to be done. The upside is that the horse and owner have had many more years together than was possible in the past. I can't find a way to put a dollar sign on that.