Horse Teeth Floating: What It Is and Why It’s Done

The crown of the horse’s tooth is extremely important to grind food sufficiently for proper digestion. When a horse’s teeth do not align properly, this can cause appetite problems and other health issues.

It’s important to understand how horse teeth floating can help your horse’s teeth stay in top shape to allow for proper digestion.

What Is Horse Teeth Floating?

Horse teeth floating is the process of evening out and removing ridges from teeth and correcting other dental malocclusions (misalignment) to allow the horse to use the full grinding surface of their teeth.

A veterinarian uses a tool called a float, which has an abrasive surface typically made of diamond or carbide that is hard enough to grind down the raised edges of the teeth. Think of this device as a large power tool specifically designed for dental work on large animals.

Routine dental examinations and floating should be scheduled once a year for most horses. However, more frequent evaluation may be needed for very old and very young horses as well as horses with severe dental malocclusions.

Horse Teeth Floating Tools

Veterinarians may use a variety of tools to effectively float a horse’s teeth, including:

• Dental float/rasp—A power or manual instrument with a rough grinding surface designed to quickly wear away areas of tooth that are no longer flush with the rest of the crown

• Dental speculum—A tool that holds the horse’s mouth open during the dental procedure

• Irrigation—Large oral syringes or flushes are often used to remove food material and tooth debris during the dental exam—some power floats come with their own irrigation system that also helps keep the teeth from overheating during the floating process

• Head stand—A device that is designed to support the horse’s head while the mouth is being examined and the teeth are floated. Head stands come in many styles, including stands and slings

• Sedation—IV medications such as Dormosedan, xylazine, and butorphanol are most commonly used to help make the procedure as safe and effective as possible.

• Personal protective equipment (PPE)—Veterinarians often wear PPE, including gloves and glasses or goggles, during dental floating because a large amount of tooth particle can be released into the air around them during the procedure

Why Would a Horse Need Their Teeth Floated?

Evolution of Horse Teeth

In the wild, horses gain most of their nutrition through grazing on rough, fibrous material such as grass and brush. They use their incisors to clip the blades and then their tongue moves the food to the back of the mouth, where the molars break down the tough strands using a grinding motion.

Horse teeth have evolved to help facilitate the chewing and grinding of these tough forages. The continuous eruption of the tooth’s crown allows them to continue to chew even as the tooth slowly wears away during the process of grinding and chewing their food.

In domesticated horses, grain and other extruded feeds (cooked with pressure and moist heat to better retain nutrients) make up a large portion of a horse’s calorie intake. Hay and some grasses are also less tough to chew than some of the forages eaten by horses in the wild.

Domesticated horse diets can result in less wearing of their teeth, which can sometimes lead to inconsistencies in how the teeth wear down while they continue to erupt.

Additionally, horses’ top and bottom jaws don’t overlap perfectly. This misalignment also causes their teeth to wear unevenly, with sharp points forming on outside edges of the top teeth and the inside edges of the bottom teeth.

When tooth ridges form, it limits the horse’s ability to grind their food properly and can even damage the soft structures of the mouth such as the cheeks and tongue. Correcting these misalignments with an equine dental float is critically important to a horse’s overall health.

Hypsodont Teeth in Horses

Horses are herbivores, and hypsodont teeth are common in these types of animals. Hypsodont teeth constantly erupt over the course of their lifetime. This helps to maintain the grinding surface when they break down tough, fibrous feed material.

This eruption and wearing down of hypsodont teeth isn’t always perfectly even.

Factors that may cause uneven grinding of horse teeth include:

• Most horses have an upper jaw that is slightly wider and longer than their lower jaw, meaning their molars do not perfectly overlap

• Not all teeth erupt at exactly the same rate

• Variations in a horse’s diet may result in irregular wearing of the teeth

Abnormal Wear Patterns in Horse Teeth

Examples of abnormal wear patterns in horse teeth may include:

• Points—ridges on the inner parts of the lower molars or outer parts of the upper molars

• Hooks—ridges on the front of the first molar and back of the last molar

• Waves—teeth erupting at different rates, creating different heights along the jaw

• Steps—single teeth that erupt significantly more quickly than the nearby teeth, often secondary to the loss of the opposing tooth

Benefits of Horse Teeth Floating

Periodic equine dental floats offer a number of potential benefits, including:

• Improved chewing and digestion

• Improved manure quality

• Decreased risk of choke

• Less food waste

• Increased longevity of teeth

• Improved oral comfort when chewing and in the bridle

• Reduced risk of tooth fracture and infection

• Improved long-term health

Cost of Horse Teeth Floating

The cost for a horse dental float typically starts around $200 to $250. However, costs will vary depending on:

• What area/town you live in

• The condition of your horse’s teeth

• The amount of sedation needed for the procedure

• The length of time for the procedure (dental floats can take anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour, depending on the condition of the teeth and other factors)

Check with your veterinarian for the most up-to-date pricing.