Teeth Floating

[Tenstrike]

As our stock ages we hope to keep them going as long as possible. I have experience having the teeth floated on one horse, my memory is that it didn't help much. Any of you guys have an experience with having a horses teeth floated? I have two 30 year olds, one is doing great on hay, and the other not so good. Anybody recommend having the teeth floated? Feed soft feed? Just looking for ideas, thanks.

 

[bisblue]

I don't know much, but my vet slides their jaw side to side to see if they have any tooth growth that is causing an obstruction.

 

[BigAntlerGetter]

Teeth floated is general maintenance. Just case you had it done once and it “didn’t seem to help” doesn’t mean it didn’t work. Horses teeth constantly grow, and can have tons of different effects, ulcers, bad eating habits, head tossing, choke, colic, abscesses, etc.

You should honestly have teeth floated in my professional opinion as an outfitter every other year at the most, some horses can go a bit longer (as long as they don’t have missing teeth) and can be done at times every 6 months.

Your horse that didn’t show any changes might have needed more follow ups, could use had sever ramps, grooves, hooks, sharp points etc. I had a horse I bought that took 3 sessions in 6’months to get their teeth back to good working order then 8 months to get them back to good healthy normal weight.

A buddies horse looked healthy and was solid, but dropped grain out of his mouth with every bite, we had him done and got his teeth back to almost perfect, still drops grain.

Your 30 year old horse’s most likely need more care on their teeth, they still grow and could have other issues contributing to the weight loss other than teeth that may have originally been caused by the teeth. Ulcers are huge and take a while to fix. It also could be just age and normal for that horse as they are pushing generally way past their normal working life expectations. May be time to simply retire the one or both.


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[Mtaylor]

I float mine every few years, just general maintenance. Sometimes those sharp point also bother their mouth and they don’t respond to the bit as well.

 

[doverpack12]

At 30 the chewing surfaces could be pretty flat and not able to properly shred the hay for their body to utilize.

We have one old horse that was way underweight when we got him. Teeth once a year and purina senior feed with a hay net that is always full and he’s now at full weight possibly even on the heavy side. He didn’t have a good coat when we bought him in the spring and actually didn’t shed out all the way for half the summer. He would get cold in 50-60 with rain.

Now he has the thickest coat, will squeal and run around like he is the friskiest one.

His feet had a huge change also.

It took a good 8-10 months to get his weight up and I would say well over a year before he was full strength, good energy, good coat and improving feet.
The first 6 months or so he was on rice bran and alfalfa pellets with senior.

He gets used like the rest of them but we do give him a joint supplement which really helps with stiffness.