...so what happened in thousands of years prior to us floating their teeth?
I think in that case, it was tough cookies for the horse. It lived with the pain.
Much like humans prior to aspirin, chiropractors, massage therapists, or what have you.
Horses evolved to eat grasses that have high amounts of silica, so eating natural foods wore the teeth down. Now, with lush pasture and soft forage, they need a little extra help.
We have never floated the teeth of our horses, they chew on stuff, and our horses have always lived long, healthy lives. They have lots of grazing area with grass, brush and weeds and we supplement with a little grain and hay.
Just guessing here, but horses thousands of years ago didn't eat much hay. They grazed prairies, and got lots of dirt and grit with their food, which would have kept their teeth ground down.
They were eating land forage and ingesting enough sand/grit to keep them worn down. They had shorter lifespans to, and bad teeth probably figured in that...
my thoughts exactly....the loons are really reaching....
Chet, in the thousands of years prior to floating their teeth the average horse in the wild lived about 8 years, because of their teeth getting sharp bures they couldn’t process their feed as well, lost weight until they were too weak and would get eaten by a Mountain Lion.