BlindLove South Africa - January 2024 Report

BlindLove in South Africa were able to run five outreach clinics during January 2025 with the help of our generous AAA donors.

Outreaches were held with the cart horses and their owners on: 12 Jan, 17 Jan, 25 Jan, 28 Jan, 29 Jan.

A total of 28 horses attended outreaches in Jan. The Welfare training workshop was held on the 25th Jan. At this workshop theAgripreneur team made use of the Brooke Foundations ‘Sharing the Load’ manual. At this workshop they focused on / and drew mobility maps, which helps create an understanding of where people go with their working animals and why?

They also discussed how the animals welfare problems affect the lives of their owners. Things like distances travelled each day while working, length of time spent working, rest period, grazing each day were also discussed.

They listed all destinations they generally need to travel to with their animals while working and this was drawn onto ‘maps’. They then discussed possible links between movement/ distance travelled each day and if they thought it impacted on their animals welfare.

At all the other outreaches they handed out our small welfare pamphlet, which deals with the 5 Freedoms for Animals, The Animal Anti Cruelty Act and draws comparison between humans and animals in order for them to better understand that their horses feel pain, hunger and fear just like us!

All horses were treated for internal parasites (worms) and external parasites like ticks & flies. All minor wounds were cleaned and treated.

It was nice to see more and more of the horses wearing our humane harnesses and there is definitelty a decline in harness related injuries! We are still trying to convince owners that they do not need blinkers!

Itumuleng and Makeba from the Agripreneur Team just recently completed The Sustainable Hoofcare course offered by Caballa Equine Services, they also each have a set of basic farrier tools now to correctly trim any hooves at outreaches.