Dental Check-Up Day for Our Horses

Floating

Every year we have the vet come out to “float” the horses’ teeth, which essentially means filing down any sharp points on their teeth or evening out any waves to help the horses better masticate their food. In the wild, horses are eating for most of the day, so their teeth naturally wear down, but in domesticate situations, even when horses are fed multiple times throughout the day, their teeth create sharp points. This is exacerbated when horses get older and their teeth start to naturally wear down or even fall out, so regular dental care is imperative to help keep the horses healthy.

We often are asked “Why do they call it ‘floating’ a horses’ teeth?” The float refers to the metal tool that equine dentists used to use to manually file down the teeth- it looked very much like the tool used in stone work, called a float. Modern equine dentistry uses power tools with special files that allow the vets to be more precise and efficient, meaning they don’t have to spend as much time in the horses’ mouth.

During the Dental Check-Up

The horses are all given a mild sedation before the float- this usually wears off in about 20 minutes, but we put the horses in the arena or round pen for about 45 minutes to an hour after the float so we can make sure to observe them to make sure they come out of the sedation safely.

The vet puts a speculum on the horse to hold the mouth open so the horse doesn’t accidentally bite down on the vet- the speculum doesn’t hurt the horse and allows the vet to work unimpeded.  The float itself  takes less than 10 minutes, and the vet will assess the teeth, make a note of any issues, including missing teeth, sharp points (these can create ulcerations in the mouth if not treated), and waves (teeth may grow in a “wave” pattern which can prevent the horses from grinding efficiently). They then do what they can to file down any sharp points or even out any waves in the teeth.

The only horse who did not get her teeth floated was Star, who was running a slight fever that morning, so to err on the side of caution we ran a test to see if she had an infection, but the results came back normal and her temperature went down the following day. We will schedule her float for another day.

Horse Dental Awards

Most of the horses did very well- Darcy (of course) was given the vets’ “Best Horse of the Day Award,” although Garnet was a close second. Gabriel got the “Most Annoying Award” by trying to put his entire weight onto Dr. Hunter as she was holding his head. LadyBug and Lou Dillon tied for “Most Difficult Horse of the Day Award,” mostly because they didn’t want us to give them the sedative. Thankfully one of the horses had any major issues, and we didn’t have any horses who needed their teeth pulled.

We are very thankful for our wonderful vets at OCEVS who help make sure our horses remain healthy and happy!