Cowboy Dictionary - Letter F

Feathers - On horses, the word feathers refers to the long hairs on the back of the lower legs. Not all horses have feathers. Feathers are a common characteristic of draft horses.

Horses that have feathers also commonly have "spats," which are long hairs that hang down over the hooves.

At right: The blue arrows are pointing to feathers, and the red arrows are pointing to spats.

Float - The word float can be both a noun and a verb. It can refer to the tool used to rasp a horse's teeth, or it can refer to the rasping itself.

Floating a horse's teeth means to file or rasp their teeth to make the chewing surfaces relatively flat or smooth. The type of file used for this is called a "float," which is where the procedure gets its name.

For more information about floating a horse's teeth, please see our article Floating A Horse's Teeth.

At right: A tooth float in a bucket of disinfectant.

Freeze Brand - A brand is permanent mark on the hide of an animal, and is used for identification of ownership. A freeze brand is made by using a very cold branding iron (as apposed to a hot brand which uses a hot branding iron).

The process of freeze branding uses extreme cold to kill the cells in the animal's skin that produce pigmentation, or color. Therefore, a freeze branded animal will have white hair where the freeze branding iron touched the skin.

For more information about freeze brands, please see our articles What Is Freeze Branding? and Freeze Branding Horses.

At right: A freeze brand on the right hip of a horse.