Tanzania Humane Charity (TAHUCHA) Case Study January 2023

In January 2023, the Tanzania Humane Charity (TAHUCHA) team received an emergency call from Muungano village, where a donkey owner claimed a donkey had trauma to the eye due to a stone thrown by his neighbour.

The TAHUCHA emergency team quickly attended the donkey, thoroughly examined the eye and diagnosed severe bleeding from the eye, traumatized corpora nigra, pupil and blindness.

The team decided to perform a surgical removal of the traumatized and painful eye (enucleation).

The donkey was administered with anesthetics and combined Peterson nerve block /auriculopalpebral nerve block applied to ensure surgery is performed successfully.

The traumatized eye was surgically removed and the donkey was given relief from pain, after surgery painkillers and antibiotics administered to prevent secondary bacterial infection.

The prognosis of the donkey is excellent although she has lost vision of one eye but life continues with vision in one eye.

UPDATE: The healing of this donkey is good and has had no problems. it is 100% certain that the donkey will recover and live with one eye. The donkey will not work again for the rest of her life as the donkey owner had sympathy and told us he took the donkey in as a companion because he adopted her from his grandparents so he is proud to continue living with the donkey although has lost the vision of one eye .

The TAHUUCHA team spoke with the neighbour who threw the stone unknownly/accidentally at the donkey and he completely has awareness of donkey welfare and rights, gave assurances of cooperation and commitment to the owner to find another donkey to work instead of the one with lost vision .

Thus the donkey owner requested that TAHUCHA not take donkey to the sanctuary because it is a companion for his family. TAHUCHA agreed to allow the owner to keep the donkey shall monitor the donkey in order to ensure it is not working.