BlindLove Working Donkeys - August 2023
BlindLove is a South African group that is supported by the generosity of AAA donors. Following is BlindLove’s Working Donkey Project Report for August 2023:
The goals of this project are the castration of 10 donkey males, as well as holding x 3 bigger veterinery / general outreach days where vets, farriers and an equine dentist would attend to provide these services. We also aim to replace ill fitting harnesses which contribute to many of the wounds we see.
On the 3rd August we held our first castration campaign. To our suprise most of the owners arrived with mares in tow! This did not deter the veterinery team in any way, and they quickly got to work deworming, treating wounds and injuries, cleaning out and trimming hooves! So many donkeys were either lame or sore with bits and pieces of wire, glass and small stones embedded deep in their hooves causing abcesses.
We did however castrate one little stallion! A total of 8 donkeys were treated on the day.
Feedback from the owners since then has been interesting, they have wanted to know why its the males that get done and why we cannot sterilize the females! Their reasoning is that if mares are roaming around they still might come across a stallion and be mated, so wouldn’t it be better if the mares were done! We have had to explain to them that is is a much more invasive operation, into the abdominal cavity and the procedure tends to be painful and there can be more serious complications, whereas it takes about 30 min to castrate a male and is fairly straightforward and non invasive!
We have also told them as it would help reduce agression in the stallions, there would be less fighting and therefore less injuries seen amongst the males. The owners are positive about all of this and we are planning another gelding campaign on the 30 Sept.
The veterinery outreach held with the vets, farrier and equine dentist took place on the 13th August.
We had vets Dr Annie Mears and her assistant Dr Simone Farrel there, we had Equine Denist and farrier Donovan Lamerton and then 5 USA veterinery students from Safari4U assisting. Malibongwe our Donkey Champion and our groom Michael also provided invaluable assistance, also acting as interpreters because many of the owners only speak Xhosa. We had 2 volunteers Helen Grapes and Joy Manning there.
The day was bitterly cold and everyone worked until after 4.30 that afternoon!
A total of 23 donkeys were treated. Each donkey that attended was dewormed, treated for any external parasites, any wounds and injuries were cleaned up, all had their hooves cleaned and trimmed and each donkey had its teeth done. Each and every procedure was carefully explained to the owners.
We are getting small sanding/ filing tools from Fiinegans Tools in Ireland, which the donkeys owners will also be able to make themselves. We are also going to teach them how to make their own hoofpicks, as so many problems can be avoided if they simply clean out and check their donkeys hooves every day!
We had a big bale of hay which we divided up into feed bags for the owners to take home with them. There were donated grooming brushes, hoofpicks and halters which we handed out to the owners.
Joy and Helen had also made up small packets of sweets for the children, which really inspired them to get actively involved, groomimg their donkeys, learning how to pick out hooves etc!!
Joy and Helen had also small bags of dog food which was given to owners who said they had dogs.
We are looking at hosting the next big Veterinery outreach in November.
More harnesses are being made up during Sept and we plan to start handing them out ASAP. Malibongwe struggled sewing them by hand so we have brought them back and taken them to the small sewing business in town to do.
