They should be checked at least yearly, some horses every 6 months if there’s a history of issues, and float as needed, which might be every 18-24-36 months. Hard teeth, healthy jaws, lots of forage on the ground, good body work, and just good chewing patterns, do a lot
I have an older horse that started doing the same thing back in May. Vet came out, did an exam. During floating the drill found his very last tooth on his bottom jaw is loose. It wasn’t loose enough to feel manually, but the drill made it vibrate. We attempted to extract the tooth, but weren’t able to get it out. He doesn’t chew constantly, but that’s exactly how I described when I first saw it. Looked like he was chewing cud. We put him on pain meds to see if that would lessen the chewing, it didn’t. This made us think it was more annoying than painful. He’s eating perfectly fine (for an old man - he was already on mush), no foul odor, no other behavior changes. He gets rechecked this week. Fingers crossed we can get it out this time.
