And these donkeys without ears?

During 2022, my wife, Kotie, and I decided to explore St Lucia and surrounds, opting to travel via Ladysmith, where we spent the night, through central KwaZulu-Natal, and visit towns like Dundee, Nqutu, Melmoth, and so on. The roads were in good condition, and it was delightful to explore these parts. It was in Nqutu that we encountered several donkeys without ears. We had to wonder whether it was some or other disease that damaged their ears like that, because it would be quite drastic for anyone to mark their animals in this way.

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Dr Quixi Sonntag Zwart, veterinarian at EduPet and formerly Community Engagement Coordinator at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, responds:

Based on my experience with donkeys and donkey owners in western Limpopo, I can offer the following explanations:

• Donkeys are commonly marked for identification on their ears. Each donkey owner has a unique pattern that they cut out on the ears so that they will be able to recognise their donkeys since they mostly roam freely. Donkey theft, while not common, does occur, and if somebody steals a donkey, they won’t want the original owner’s pattern to be visible and consequently cut off the whole ear.

• Ears are also amputated in response to injuries or lesions such as those caused by sarcoid (a viral growth that can occur anywhere on the body) or severe infections. It could even be due to a botched identification procedure. There is a sincere belief among donkey owners that amputating the ear helps the donkey in cases of injury or disease.

Unfortunately these amputations are done without pain management and infection control and are thus a welfare concern. Furthermore, removing the ear flap negatively impacts a donkey’s ability to fend off flies and thus fly-related conditions are more likely. They also use their ears for communication, so the absence of ears can negatively impact their relationships with other donkeys as well as people.

Donkey owners in rural areas usually do not have easy access to veterinary services, so it is not helpful to judge them for not being able to provide the best veterinary medical care for their animals. Creating awareness of animal welfare challenges and empowerment through skills development are helpful approaches that are used in some areas.

The lack of veterinary services in rural areas is an ongoing challenge (across the world) and in South Africa some progress has been made with the compulsory community service programme for veterinary graduates who offer services in some rural areas. The programme does, however, suffer from resource constraints.

Donkeys, sadly, are a neglected species. There are no (or very limited) government projects that support them (in the same way that, for example, small-scale farmers are supported with livestock projects,) and they are not highly regarded in the hierarchy of species among communities. Cattle are generally considered valuable and donkeys much less so, even though they add much value as a mode of transport and for ploughing in subsistence farming. Even in the training of veterinary students, donkeys do not get much attention in spite of their high numbers in rural South Africa. >