BlindLove Working Donkey Program October 2023
BlindLove is based in South Africa and is one of the partner groups supported by Anima Aid Abroad donors.
Following is the report on their Working Donkey Program for October 2023.
It started raining on Sept 25th and rained almost continuously through until the end of the first week in November! All along the coast rivers burst their banks, dams filled and the roads flooded. This hampered any plans made and put outreaches on hold, as even the road to our farm was often flooded by the Kleinemonde River that flows under it and we could not pass.
We had set ourselves the target of making up another batch of 20 humane donkey harnesses during Oct. This meant that during the months Sept - Oct 2023 we will have made up 30 humane donkey harnesses! This next batch of 20 harnesses will be handed out during November.
We managed to reach that target which is no easy feat!
Each harness has 4 big steel D-rings, 5 big buckles, almost 3m of the wide yellow webbing straps and over 3m of the white webbing straps. We cut, bend and weld each buckle and D-ring ourselves. All the straps are cut to size, the ends need to be singed with a piece of hot metal to prevent fraying, the holes punched with a piece of hot wire, and then sewn together!
At first we had hoped to have a ‘single set’ harness with just the breastband in front, and neck straps, but after consulting with the owners and Malibongwe it was decided we needed to do a ‘full set’, like we are doing for the cart horses in Thaba’nchu, with the breastband in front and the loin strap behind which would act as the breaking system in the carts.
20 harnesses translates to 80 D-rings, 100 buckles and metres & metres of straps cut and sewn! Lots of work done while the rain kept falling!
In most cases any injuries we have seen & treated are because of ill fitting, old broken harnesses so we are hoping to see a huge improvement in this area.
Our biggest area of frustration has been waiting for confirmation/ dates as to when we can hold the next castration campaign and then the next veterinery outreach.
We are fully aware that the Grahamstown Veterinery clinic has been put under immense strain with Dr Annie being ill in hospital fequently over the last couple of months and then ending up in ICU after being attacked by a swarm of bees, so we have decided to approach Dr Amy from Makana Veterinery Clinic to assist.
Dr Amy was actually the first vet/ practice we approached almost 2 years ago when we were first wanting to start working in Grahamstown with the disadvantaged donkey owning communtiy as her entire approach is community driven, but back then she simply did not have the resources and staff available to assist. This has changed now, they have moved to a new bigger premises and Dr Amy is more than willing to help. She was the vet that castrated Qwagga and the other 2 stallions not long after they arrived from the Pound!
After chatting to her and the owners we have decided to look at doing the castrations at the owners individual homes, in their yards, perhaps with neighbours too. This was something we had not considered before as Grahamstown veterinery clinic had wanted it all done ‘big’, in a central location on the same day. Owners had expressed concerns about how they would have to walk their donkey/s home many miles in some cases after the op, with hungry township dogs on the prowl. Donkeys have been attacked by dogs in the past, so this seems like a working solution.
She is also more than willing to assist us doing smaller, more regular veterinery outreach clinics which we think will be far more beneficial to the community.
We are excited about this new development!
