BlindLove Working Donkeys - December 2023

One of the partner groups which benefits from the generous support of AAA donors is BlindLove in South Africa. Following is their report on their working donkey program for December 2023.

After the owners themselves postponing the 2 planned outreaches in November, we tentatively set the date for the December outreach to be held on Sat 16th. The 15th and 16th are both public holidays in South Africa, so Philippa was a bit apprehensive the owners might end up cancelling again due to drunkedness that goes hand in hand with end of year festivities and holidays. Thankfully however, the owners did not dissapoint and arrived with their donkeys on the day sober, eager, keen and excited!

We handed out another batch of 20 humane donkey harnesses. It was a wonderful hub of activity seeing all the old broken harnesses being removed and replaced with the our simple, bright yellow harnesses. Hopefully we will see a huge decline in harnesses related injuries going forward.

All the donkeys hooves were nicely cleaned out and then we handed out hoofpicks for the owners to take home. We also had a couple of the small, easy to make Finnegan Tools hoof files which Patrick Finnegan in Ireland sent us. The owners were very impressed with these and now everyone wants one! We also handed out some grooming brushes to each owner. All the donkeys that were at the outreach were dewormed and treated for ticks. All minor wounds and injuries were cleaned out and treated. The donkeys generally looked very healthy!

We showed the owners our simple little humane bridle that we are planning on starting to make for the donkeys in Jan and they reacted very positively to these too!

We also discussed the castrations still needing to be done. Philippa promised it was still very much on the cards and would keep them updated regarding when, where etc, with hopefully another 10 on the cards for 2024. It was a fantastic way to end of 2023, with many new donkeys and owners being added into our program!

The next outreach date was set for the 20th Jan!

The owners promised that there would be many, many more donkeys and owners attending as word spread! The owners called for a ‘family photo’ at the end of the day, jostling and pushing all the little donkeys, owners and children together for a group photo! Adding to the festive feeling, we had some lovley donated rosettes which the owners pinned on their donkeys bridles!