In 6 Mobile Vet Clinics funded by AKI, the SAWS team has helped 490 donkeys and numerous cows, camels, and goats. Hassan wrote this report about their 6th and last mobile clinic -in March- funded with the 2018 AKI grant.
As part of AKI's 2018 Africa-Based Animal Welfare Organization Grant Program, SAWS held mobile vet clinics in four settlements in the vicinity of the villages of Abaarso and Dhinbiryaale, located 26 km and 30 km, respectively, southwest of Hargeisa. The SAWS team treated a total of 162 donkeys, 31 cows and 21 of their babies, and 10 camels. The most common ailments were worms, overgrown hooves, laminitis, injuries and wounds, and skin diseases caused by ticks and a fungal skin disease.
The SAWS team encountered a skin disease that was affecting 21 baby cows. The community in the area knows well the cause of the disease but they do not know about the medicine that they can use to treat their cows. The SAWS vets advised the owners to separate the sick animals because the disease can spread rapidly, and secondly they prescribed an anti-fungal medicine, which is mixed in water and then used to wash the animals all over.
Donkey owners of Darfacle and Malowle villages informed the SAWS team about their challenges:
1. There are many diseases that affect calves.
2. The livestock owners do not have tools to cut hooves. Some of the owners told the SAWS team that they use a hot knife to cut hooves, but that can cause injuries and even death.
3. There is no vet clinic or vet doctors in the area.
4. Diseases are easily spread in the area and it is common that animals die when still young because owners do not know about or have access to medicine for curing/treating.
5. There are vampire bats and tick birds living in the bushes of the rural area that eat ticks off of the donkeys' backs, shoulders, and necks, drink blood, and cause infections.
6. Ticks and mosquitoes and many other biting insects are common and can cause diseases.
7. Donkeys have no shelter on cold nights and rainy days.
8. Severe droughts are persistent in Somaliland and the donkeys and cows resulting in shortages of water and fodder, and ultimately in massive death of donkeys and other livestock.
The donkey owners lack knowledge of animal welfare, such as providing shelter, cleaning rubbish from areas where donkeys are kept, and good design of carts. Where ever we reach, there is a huge demand for SAWS services of treating donkeys and other livestock.
Below are pictures of some of the animals that the SAWS team treated during our March mobile clinic.
