With support from Animal-Kind International, Bam Animal Clinics holds donkey welfare clinics in eastern Uganda. The clinics consist of:
Providing free basic treatments (de-worming, wound and hoof care, and if needed, more specialized care).
Training donkey owners about basic donkey health care (mainly de-worming, wound care, hoof care, and how to deal with injuries, including when to contact an animal health care specialist), humane handling (harnessing, loading, and handling donkeys without causing pain), and basic donkey welfare needs (providing clean water, rest, food, shelter).
Separately, in smaller training classes, Bam demonstrates how to make and use humane saddles.
School visits, where they discuss animal welfare with the students.
As part of Bam's donkey welfare program, Animal-Kind International supports all of these activities, enabling Bam to provide help for donkeys in Uganda.
Most recently, Bam Animal Clinics was in Benet sub-county in Kween District for the first time. They also followed up with some of their previous trainees to make sure the donkey owners' new skills were being put to good use--and they found that they were!
Help for Donkeys in Uganda: Benet Sub-County
It never fails that on their way from Iganga to eastern Uganda, the Bam team run into donkeys carrying farm produce for sale at markets in town. Trekking long distances with heavy sacks that are poorly loaded, the donkeys are an accident waiting to happen. Too often, donkeys get into collisions with vehicles or just drop on the ground from carrying the heavy load, illness, or injury.
The Bam team always stop to help the donkeys and talk to the owners about how to better manage the donkeys loads and in general, how to better handle and care for their donkeys. After all, it's in the owner's self-interest to keep their donkeys healthy and working.
During their October visit, while on their way to the clinic location in Benet sub-county, the Bam group saw a donkey tethered at the side of the road who had fallen into the trench below.
The donkey couldn't get loose of the tether or get fully upright and was panicked by the situation she found herself in. Meanwhile, her owner didn't even realize the donkey was in a precarious situation and needed help. The Bam team assisted the owner to release and relocate the donkey to a safer spot, explaining to him how to tether her to ensure this won't happen again. They also asked him to spread the word to let others know about what he had learned in the hopes of helping more donkeys.
Then, the Bam team proceeded to their first stop, Mengya Primary School in Benet sub-county, where they requested permission from authorities to give a presentation to the students about humane animal care/welfare. Permission was granted and hundreds of students attended. The message was about love, respect, and compassion for all animals.
Next, the team held a clinic at Mengya Primary School, where they offered free vet care. Bam vets and health care workers treated hundreds of donkeys. Most of the communities in Kween and around the Mt. Elgon area don't take their donkeys to a vet, especially if a fee will be charged. Which means their donkeys usually suffer from manageable conditions that are never treated and they spiral out of control until a donkey is too weak to work, too often dying from preventable ailments.
Thanks to Bam's local volunteers, donkey owners are notified about Bam's free clinics and many hundred donkeys with their owners always attend. This is often the first time their donkeys get much-needed vet care.
Next, Bam offers training to smaller groups of donkey owners where they demonstrate how to make and fit a sisal-sack saddle on a donkey. Donkey owners then get to make their own and keep one for each of their donkeys. These simple saddles will help protect donkeys from injuries at the back of the tail, neck, and on their bodies due to heavy and poorly balanced loads. They also prevent the load from slipping off the donkey, especially when ascending or descending, which will cause the donkey to go down with the load.
David Balondemu, Bam Animal Clinics director wrote, "Thanks to support from Animal-Kind International, we are able to procure hundreds of sacks for demonstrations and providing to the communities to make these saddles. We hope in future they will be able to procure the materials for themselves since they are very inexpensive, and that they will make these useful saddles by themselves."
David sent a follow-up message to say: "Thanks Animal-Kind International for enabling Bam to improve animal welfare in Uganda and funding us to provide help for donkeys in Uganda."