By Emily Czerwinski
Time sure does fly when you are busy! It has been an action packed week here in Kenya with walk in clinics being hosted daily in various areas for the ntigiri (donkeys in Kimiru). Mondays clinic was a memorable one in Muruguma market, where along with the usual rabies and tetanus vaccines, deworming, teeth floating and hoof trimming drive through, we were able to identify and begin treating some sick donkeys in the area. One in particular who appears to be suffering from aspiration pneumonia secondary to dysphagia has been on our treatment list all week - visiting each morning before continuing on with our day. His owner is known throughout the community for caring for his donkeys diligently.
On Tuesday we headed to Miugune where Dr. Anya and I treated 50 donkeys and vaccinated 15 dogs for rabies over the course of the day. Dr. Martha continued to workshop the donkey cart and harness project while completing welfare assessments with Dr. Josephat. The phrase of the day was pole-pole (slowly in Swahili) as we worked to educate donkey owners on “less is more” when it comes to donkey and dog handling.
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| clinic day in Miugune |
Back to donkeys on Thursday, we headed to Machaka a little forestry village where the donkeys are primarily used for hauling wood from the forest into town. Our clinic was set up in the shade on the forest edge which provided a wonderful breeze most of the day.
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| clinic day in Machaka |
With the help of the whole student team we were able to vaccinate and treat 65 donkeys and vaccinate 67 dogs, our biggest clinic day yet! One of the biggest successes from the day was getting to see the new and improved donkey cart and harnessing trucking around for most of the day. With new breeching added and a different attachment across the chest and shoulders, our demo donkeys drew lots of interest from the donkey owners in the area. It has been so cool to see the huge improvements in harnessing here over the last week.
a young puppy we vaccinated
This weekend was our recharge weekend but before leaving on Friday, the donkey team spent a hot morning working on our sewing skills to build more harnessing and breeching. Our goal for the upcoming week is to have three new sets of harnesses attached to the carts in different villages with the hopes of setting up harnessing workshop days to follow.
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| new harness with breeching out for a spin Asante sana for your continued support of FHF so we can continue our projects here in Kenya, |
Emily
This important work of Farmers Helping Farmers is partially funded by Global Affairs Canada through the Gender Responsive One Health Project with Alinea International and partially through the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre of the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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