Mobile Cattle Clinic
JBF (INDIA) Mobile Cattle Clinic is operating at Kotla Mubarakpur and near by areas like Sanjay colony, Zamrudpur, Green Park of South Delhi. The JBF team has also extended its operation at Sahibabad Mandi, Ghaziabad.
Two Dressers (Anil & Yogesh) and two Hoof Trimmers (Sharafat & Afsar) under the guidance of Managing Trustee Dr. Sashanka & Technical Coordinator Dr. Smriti, operate the Mobile Cattle Clinic at Delhi. Every morning field personnel drive bicycle and / or motorcycle to the field loaded with necessary veterinary aids and medicines. JBF Mobile cattle Clinic provides on the spot treatment to the suffering cattle daily through its route of travel. Besides providing veterinary aid to the suffering cattle on the street, JBF Mobile Cattle Clinic provides treatment to the cattle at keepers place or shelter if required so. JBF Mobile Cattle Clinicalso visits the Goshalas to provide treatment to the suffering and needy cattle.
The Framework - Problems of Homeless and Street cattle: Lameness, Injuries, Malnutrition, Starvation and diseases are all common to Homeless and street cattle. Although the street cows do receive some care from their keepers, professional veterinary care is not provided either due to high cost or negligence or both. For maximum profitability, cattle keepers at Delhi spend minimum on food or veterinary care for their cattle. They release cattle on the streets to search food and thus making the cattle vulnerable to accident and injuries on the one hand and do not provide veterinary care for the injuries or diseases on the other. Malnutrition and starvation is common features amongst the homeless and street cattle besides injuries due to accidents and abuse.
Homeless Cattle – These are cows and bulls that are no longer of any commercial value to anyone, or they could simply be unlucky enough to have been born a male, which obviously excludes them from being good dairy animals in the first place.
Street Cattle – These cattle have keepers, but they are released every morning to roam on the streets of the city to find whatever food they can have amongst the rubbish. They return to their keepers in the evening for milking, after which they are again released back to the streets.
As the cows are expected to scavenge amongst the rubbish for their food these cattle has to make lots of walking on different types of road. However, lameness affects over half of these cattle which restrict their mobility that in turn minimize the amount they manage to find to eat subjecting to starvation and malnutrition. Eventually the animal will die either of starvation or from the infection in limbs, which may be due to a cut in the hooves or accidentally piercing by a piece of glass or metal. Attending to these types of injury minimizes the pain and sufferings of street cattle, protects them from infection and saves their lives which on the other hand are the source of livelihood for many poor families.
JBF (INDIA) aims to address these problems by providing veterinary care along with awareness and demonstration programs. JBF (INDIA) intends to create awareness on better animal welfare standards for the cattle, among dairy farmers and stakeholders.
To begin with, JBF (INDIA) Started to provide on the street free of cost veterinary service for the ailing cattle suffering from injuries of Hooves and Horns, injuries due to accidents, related diseases, to attend cattle on emergency. Besides JBF(INDIA) started work on health related issues of Skin infections and undertaken programs on Ectoparasites control, Malnutrition and Deworming programs.
JBF (INDIA) has also constructed few numbers of water troughs for the street cattle. Local people have taken responsibility to fill these water troughs with water.
JBF (INDIA) keep record of the cattle attended so as to keep track of the cattle so that treatment can be followed up as well as to ensure its complete recovery in successive days. As JBF (INDIA) have an established rapport with the cattle keepers in the project area, sometimes even local people extend helping hand in treating the stray or homeless cattle.
