Hartley Animal Wellness

30/11/2025

Only a few more days to get entries in for the Lithgow Ranch Horse Association December Show.

The last one looked fantastic, and a great opportunity for ALL ages, breeds and levels of rider ability!

12 days till entries close!!!!!!!
So get those entries in guys!

We cannot wait to see you all there.

https://nominate.com.au/eq

28/11/2025

Perfect timing for this post as I work towards bringing another horse into my herd.

This concept of 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months is often used for rescue dogs, but equally applicable to horses.

Great guidelines for what to expect based on the nervous system and the horse's ability to relax/learn. And the importance of bodywork at this time!

The 3 Days • 3 Weeks • 3 Months Rule

How Training, Conditioning, and Massage Therapy Support a New Horse’s Adjustment

When a horse arrives in a new home, their body and brain go through predictable stages of stress, recalibration, and integration. Understanding these stages helps set fair expectations for training, conditioning, and bodywork — and ensures the horse feels safe enough to truly learn.

First 3 Days — Survival Mode

What’s happening in the horse:

• Elevated cortisol & adrenaline

• Hypervigilance, scanning for
safety

• Tight fascia, shortened stride

• Limited sleep, digestive changes

• Polite or shut-down behavior

• Not ready for new demands

Training Implications:

• Keep it minimal. Think familiarization, not training.

• Introduce routines gently: turnout, feeding, leading.

• Avoid high expectations — they’re not mentally available yet.

• Don’t correct “weird behavior”; it’s stress physiology, not defiance.

Physical Conditioning:

• No conditioning work yet.

• Allow grazing, walking, and movement at liberty.

• Let the horse decompress before analyzing gait or posture.

How Massage Therapy Helps:

• Supports parasympathetic activation (“rest + digest”)

• Loosens protective tension in the poll, neck, TMJ, ribcage

• Improves breathing and vagal tone
• Helps the horse recover from travel stress

Goal of this phase:

Establish safety, lower stress, restore baseline physiology.

First 3 Weeks — Adjustment & Testing Phase

What’s happening in the horse:

• Nervous system begins stabilizing

• Sleep improves

• True personality begins to emerge

• Herd dynamics are being negotiated

• Fascial patterns surface (bracing, crookedness, restrictions)

Training Implications:

• Start light, simple, consistent training

• Focus on boundaries, manners, basic communication

• Expect some testing — this is normal

• Introduce new tasks slowly

• Reward relaxation and curiosity

Physical Conditioning:

• Begin low-stress conditioning:

• In-hand work

• Hill walking

• Long-and-low

• Ground poles

• Evaluate natural asymmetries, stride length, and posture

• Avoid hard cardio or heavy schooling

How Massage Therapy Helps:

• Identifies tension patterns formed from travel, past training, or stress

• Releases compensations as the horse begins doing more

• Improves thoracic sling mobility and ribcage elasticity

• Supports better saddle fit as musculature shifts

• Enhances proprioception during early training

Goal of this phase:

Build trust, establish boundaries, begin reshaping movement.

First 3 Months — Integration & True Conditioning

What’s happening in the horse:

• Herd social structure established

• Full neurobiological regulation

• Digestive system normalized

• True posture, habits, and movement patterns appear

• Genuine learning and bonding accelerate

Training Implications:

• The horse is now mentally available for real training

• Can handle consistency, new challenges, and progressive demands

• Trust is present → training becomes safer and clearer

• Complex concepts (lateral work, transitions, softness) begin to stick

Physical Conditioning:

• Begin structured strength-building:

• Raised poles

• Cavaletti

• Lateral work

• Hill work

• Engagement and core work

• Monitor soreness as new muscles develop

• Expect posture changes as the horse remaps its body

How Massage Therapy Helps:

Massage and MFR are most impactful at this stage:

• Supports remodeling of fascia as new movement patterns develop

• Helps muscles adapt to conditioning without overload

• Prevents old compensations from returning

• Enhances stride length, symmetry, and thoracic sling function

• Keeps joints decompressed as the horse gains strength

• Creates better balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic tone

• Improves overall body awareness → smoother training progress

Goal of this phase:

True integration, real conditioning, and long-term partnership.

A horse’s nervous system, fascia, and biomechanics need time to recalibrate after any major change. The 3 Days • 3 Weeks • 3 Months framework reflects how their body integrates safety, movement, and new information. Training and conditioning shape new patterns, while massage and myofascial work support the neuromuscular system as it reorganizes. Together, these pieces create lasting change — and a horse truly ready to thrive.

https://koperequine.com/the-power-of-slow-why-slow-work-is-beneficial-for-horses/

26/11/2025

Helpful article by Dr Paula Williams about working and managing horses to avoid heat stress. The link takes you to a PDF version, and I just took screenshots of the article. Looks like it was originally published in Horse Deals.

Some key takeaways:
🐎 Know the normal vitals for your horse - normal resting HR is 30-44bpm and normal temp is 37.7-38.5.

🐎 Familiarise yourself with the signs of heat stress including higher HR, panting, skin hot to touch, loss of performance, staggering/collapsing

🐎 Work out ways to preventatively keep your horse cool - shade, cold hosing, providing cool water

🐎 Avoid exercising in the middle of the day on hot days

🐎 Provide adequate salt (10g/100kg bodyweight per day) and adequate water (horses on hot days can drink 50-70L of water in warm weather, and even more if exercised)

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.westvets.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/heat-stress.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjHw76ji4-RAxXok68BHZiFLisQFnoFCJUBEAE&usg=AOvVaw2bC54IiQ8FxMHJCzLNWgYB

24/11/2025

Call Dr Jack at Bathurst Vet Services if you need any post-foaling/neonatal care this season! Great success story of a quick pickup on a foal who needed a plasma infusion 👏🏽

22/11/2025

This is what it looks like to provide a high standard of horse welfare at a horse rescue. It's not cheap. It's labour-intensive. It's bloody hard work.

Please consider donating to Elysian Fields Horse & Hound Sanctuary to help Kate provide this incredible level of care to all the horses at the Sanctuary.

21/11/2025

It's getting crazy! Pretty much worked 2 weeks in the space of 1 this week, and booking up fast as we head towards Christmas. I'll do my absolute best to fit everyone in, so get in touch if you want to book in and I'll see what I can do!

18/11/2025

"Your horse's skeleton is built for impact, not confinement".

Check out the summary of this research. I'm keen to read the whole paper when I get a minute.

Makes me even more grateful when I see my horses thundering around the track, building bone density. Especially for Luna, my 3yo.

Your horse’s skeleton is built for impact — not confinement.

Three decades of equine bone research makes one thing painfully clear: Horses kept in box stalls lose bone density.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

Confinement triggers the same biological process humans call osteoporosis — and it starts fast.

Key findings from the research:

- Horses moved from pasture into stalls and worked only at slow speeds began losing bone mineral content within weeks.
- A single short sprint per week (50–80 m) dramatically strengthened bone.
- Corticosteroids mask pain and increase risk of further injury
- Good nutrition cannot override a lack of mechanical loading.
- A skeleton that doesn’t experience impact simply cannot stay strong.

All of this is drawn from:
Nielsen, B.D. (2023). A Review of Three Decades of Research Dedicated to Making Equine Bones Stronger. Animals, 13(5), 789.

So what does this mean for our modern domesticated horses?

It means bone weakness is not inevitable.

It’s a management problem.

It means many “mysterious” pathologies — stress fractures, suspensory injuries, joint degeneration, chronic compensation, recurrent lameness — are downstream consequences of bone that never had the chance to adapt to the forces nature designed it for.

Box stalls create osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis creates a whole lot of other pathology.

Your horse doesn’t need to be an athlete. But their bones require impact. Free movement. The ability to respond to their own nervous system’s cues to trot, canter, play, stretch, and even sprint.

Turnout is not enrichment.

Movement is biology.

Bone health is built — or lost — every single day.

A question I encourage every owner to sit with:

If you knew your horse’s bones were weakening in silence every day they stood still, would you keep managing them the same way?

Because in the end, it’s not confinement that keeps a horse safe.

It’s a resilient skeleton.

And only you can give them the environment their biology requires.

Change begins with us.

18/11/2025

Another fascinating article about the 4 different types of fascia!

Fascia, Fascia, Fascia: The Updated Map of the Body’s Connective Network

There is a newer, more formal classification of the fascial system that is becoming increasingly recognized in equine anatomy.

Here’s the clear summary of the most current view:

The New Classification of the Fascial System

The Fascia Research Society (FRS) and the Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology (FIPAT) have outlined a modern, unified classification that moves far beyond the older “superficial vs. deep fascia” model.

The contemporary definition sees fascia as a body-wide, three-dimensional, continuous connective-tissue network, and the system is divided into four major categories:

1. Superficial Fascia
• Located just under the skin
• Highly hydrated, rich in nerves
• Houses adipose tissue
• Major role in sensory input, thermoregulation, glide, and fluid dynamics

2. Deep/Muscular Fascia
• Dense connective tissue around muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments
• Includes epimysium, perimysium, endomysium
• Responsible for force transmission (including epimuscular force transmission)
• Major role in proprioception and muscle coordination

3. Visceral Fascia (Splanchnic Fascia)
• Connective tissue surrounding and suspending organs
• Includes mesentery, pleura, pericardium, mediastinum
• Involved in visceral mobility, stability, motility, and visceral–somatic pain patterns

4. Neural Fascia (Meningeal Fascia)
• Envelops and supports the nervous system
• Includes dura mater, epineurium, perineurium, and endoneurium
• Critical for neural glide, tension regulation, and mechanosensory input

The Most Important Shift

The new classification is based on the concept of the “fascial continuum” — meaning:

Fascia is not a collection of separate sheets but a continuous organ system with regional specializations.

This reclassification also aligns with the concept of fascia as an organ of communication, integrating:
• mechanical sensing
• proprioception
• nociception
• autonomic regulation
• fluid dynamics
• force transmission
• inflammatory responses

Relevance to Equine Science, Massage & Bodywork

For horses, this classification is extremely helpful because:
• The visceral fascia explains referred pain patterns (as in ulcer-induced movement changes).
• The deep fascial system explains global force transmission and compensatory patterns.
• The neural fascia helps explain vagal tone, autonomic responses, and tension patterns.
• The superficial fascia relates heavily to sensation, bracing, coat changes, edema, and swelling.

This is why equine movement, posture, and pain can reflect problems far from the apparent site.

https://koperequine.com/there-are-4-categories-of-fascia/

13/11/2025

Some fantastic head anatomy info from Equine Bodyworks By Mary Sargeant

A horse does not begin at the poll.

For a long time the head was often missed out as part of the horses therapy session and only then maybe the TMJ was considered and the odd tongue mobilisation in fact probably to this day those two areas are only addressed as the mainstream when addressing the head yet there is so much more and we can't forget the head houses the brain which will interpret what we do before we even begin touching the horse. So even before we touch the horse they may already be on alert and preparing to block us out. How we introduce ourselves matters, in fact it will probably dictate how the whole session will go.

How many videos do we see with the person poking behind the ears, the horse reacting yet maybe has to endure another 5 or 6 pokes to get that sensational video??? Is this horse first thinking?? Only to see in the next video a quiet no responsive horse, well my cynical view if the horse cant get away it will check out and you can only be poked so much before the area becomes unresponsive but still just as uncomfortable for the poked.

We often forget the the muscles that work together we see a hypertrophied temporalis yet forget they belong in the group of mastication muscles so do we work on one?? Do we address the group or is it the teeth or chewing that is the issue? Or something else, as it could always be something else

We place fingers in the mouth to mobilise the tongue to mobilise the hyoid without ever thinking how does the brain feel about the foreign object in the mouth, is the sensory system now on high alert to protect the horse from the danger of swallowing a foreign object, are your hands clean?? Are the taste receptors also putting a warning sign out??
If the hyoid is connected to the root of the tongue it would make sense to start at the connection from the outside.

How are the eyes, if the horse has one eye buying alcohol and the other buying cigs then how can the rest of body get that balance that we work hard for.

What about the teeth?? The masseter muscle can tell us how the horse teeth were floated. The incisors if they have a hook on the corner then how can the horse be flexible on both reins if one side is restricted, how can the jaw have freedom of movement if restricted in one of many directions, I can do all the bodywork in the world but I cant do a thorough job if the horse doesn't have good dental care, I will be just addressing the same issue over and over again.
Is the jaw clenched through stress, worry about what you are going to do or is their personality having a part to play everytime a jaw is clenched restriction sets in we need to work out have we which one it is and adjust our work to suit the horse.
Cheek sucked in?? Or is the buccinator nice and plump?? Does anyone even notice?? It is all information that tells us a story

We can begin at the head without beginning at the head, huh???
Many muscles and structures continue and connect past the poll, past the hyoid so why would we begin at a place of stress for the horse we can work our way up, heads are continually controlled by human hands so if the horse is wary then we can work our way towards the head from another place but we must check our work to make sure we have been affective

Look forward past the poll for you may get another chapter in the story of the horses body and some answers to the questions you ask.

Again i try my best with the pics but do get some things wrong sometimes as my head ends up spinning with all the names
I may need to unclench my jaw after doing this one 😃