From: Nancy
Jessica -
What does it mean to float a horse's teeth? I hear that all the time ("oh, he needs his teeth floated") and for the life of me can't imagine what that involves.
TIA! Nancy
Human teeth don't keep growing throughout a person's life, but horses' teeth DO. And as they grow, they develop sharp edges and can become quite uneven, making it difficult and painful for a horse to chew its feed effectively, hold a bit in its mouth comfortably, or even accept the pressure of a noseband.
You've probably seen horses biting grass with their front teeth -- when that grass, or their hay and grain, gets to their BACK teeth, they chew it and swallow it. Sounds like humans, right?
Not quite. When horses eat, they grind their food between the surfaces of their top and bottom teeth. It's a sideways movement rather than an up-and-down one -- like using a stone to grind corn for tortillas! The broad grinding surfaces of the cheek teeth (molars and premolars) break down the food and mash it to pulp BEFORE the horse swallows it.
If the surfaces of the teeth aren't kept flat, so that they grind the grain efficiently, the horse won't be able to reduce it to a pulp before swallowing it, and the unchewed grain won't be digested -- it will simply pass through the horse. This is why a horse that's dropping its food everywhere should have its teeth inspected and floated -- and this is why a horse with teeth in NEED of floating can remain thin even when being fed large amounts of grain.
Weight loss and difficulty with digestion aren't the only problems caused by teeth that need floating.
Many, many performance problems in the horse are the direct result of mouth pain -- as the direct result of tooth problems. All too often, head-tossing, mouth-opening, or unwillingness to flex or bend to one side is interpreted as "resistance" when the problem is actually one of mouth pain.
Left unattended, teeth will eventually develop sharp edges from uneven wear. Sharp edges on the lower molars will tend to be on the inside, where they can hurt the horse's tongue. Sharp edges on the upper molars will tend to be on the outside, where they can hurt and even lacerate the insides of the horse's cheeks. Such teeth, on a horse that's being ridden with a bit and noseband, can create deep lesions, even ulcerated ones, inside the horse's cheeks. A rider with heavy hands can cause pain and lacerations to the horse's cheeks if there are sharp edges on the first molars -- the bit and reins will push against the sores, causing the horse to toss or tilt his head.
Conformation plays a part in how often your horse's teeth will need professional attention. If a horse has all its teeth, and all those teeth meet in a straight horizontal line, with no gaps and no slants -- ideal conformation -- the horse may need only minor floating once a year. If a horse has gaps from missing teeth, or if its teeth aren't aligned well, with the incisors and the molars mismatched, those teeth will wear unevenly, and might need floating two or three times a year.
A good vet or equine dentist will use a speculum to keep the horse's mouth open, and will work carefully to smooth ALL the teeth that need smoothing. He will also perform preventive maintenance on the horse's canine teeth, keeping these short and rounded so that they don't grow long and sharp. He will remove "wolf teeth" -- the vestigial first premolar, generally found on the upper jaw. Wolf teeth are tiny, pointed teeth that typically interfere with the bit and cause pain all out of proportion to their size. Some don't even break the surface of the skin -- the vet will have to feel the horse's jaws to locate them -- but they cause pain anyway. Fortunately they are generally simple to extract.
The money you spend on your horse's teeth is very much worth it -- your horse will digest his feed better, be happier, and be more fun to ride.
The next time you have a chance to talk to your own vet or the vet at your barn or riding school, talk to him about tooth-floating, and ask him to tell you about some of the things he has seen!
Jessica
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