Teeth Floating Dental Exam for our rescued Belgian Draft Horses Ep.19

1 year ago
48

Episode 19
What is horse teeth floating and why is it so important?

Horses' teeth grow and change constantly! They continually file their own teeth down by chewing. However, if they don't chew evenly, their teeth can grow sharp edges. Razor-like edges can form and as a horse develops those points on the teeth, the points can poke into the gums, cut the inside of the mouth or cause gum irritation making it painful for the horse to eat.

The process of removing potentially harmful sharp points and edges from the cheek teeth is called rasping or 'floating'. This process is performed on a regular basis depending on the age of the horse and the health of the mouth. Before rasping the teeth a thorough examination of the mouth is performed. This can only be done properly by using a device called a speculum to safely keep the mouth open. This allows the practitioner to look and feel inside the horse's mouth to check not only for sharp points but also for other problems such as broken or missing teeth. There are many different types of dental rasps. The practitioner will have a range of instruments to allow work to be performed on teeth in various parts of the mouth.

Horse owners should understand the impact a horse’s dental health has on the horse’s well-being. The following are a few signs that a horse is ready for teeth floating.
• Dropping hay or gain from the mouth while chewing
• Major drooling while eating
• Weight loss due to reduced appetite
• Resistant or uncomfortable with the bit
• Cribbing, especially with a horse that hasn’t had a history of cribbing
• Quidding (packing forage between the teeth and cheek).
• Sharp points on horse teeth.

When we rescued these horses back in February, we had a vet check all the horses overall health while they were still at the livestock yard. Her observation was they all needed their teeth floated. When they arrived here on the farm most of the horses were showing signs that they needed floating such as dropping food from their mouth, drooling while eating and quidding.

This video is about all the rescued horses dental exam/floating with Sarah Long IAED Certified Equine Practitioner at Long Equine Dentistry here in Amarillo.

https://www.facebook.com/sarah.mitchell.1004

Loading comments...