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Posted by Jake
on 11/5/2009, 7:11 pm, in reply to "Trying to find someone to hand float is frustrating!"
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I am a tech and see MANY MANY floats. We do hand floats and power floats. I would NEVER subject my horse to a hand only float. Its very hard on them for many reason... 1)the float bangs into the jaw and teeth as you float. There just isnt any way to avoid that when your running the float back and forth. 2)the must keep their jaw wrenched open for much much longer. I have seen horses with very sore jaws after hand floats. 3)The float blade is not guarded so its very common to cut the soft tissue as you float. Its very common to rinse blood from the mouth of a hand floated horse while the power float infrequently causes bleeding. Even though all floats are thoroughly cleaned between horses there is still the potential to bring bacteria from the last horses mouth to your horse. If the floats draw blood you are increasing the chance of infection (although slight). 4)because the hand floats take longer the horse often has to be re-sedated several times. This is hard on the kidney and liver and increases the risk of colic.
Like I said... I will always choose a power float over a hand float. Of course there are some horses that just wont cooperate for the power tools but short of that I would never never choose a hand float.
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