The livestock project started !!!

Finally, after more than eight months of preparation, the livestock project has really started. On 5 and 6 December 2016, the training of the farmers of Ban Set Taolek and Ban Thamouang took place. Ban Set Taolek is our model village and Ban Thamouang the reference village. The training consisted of three parts. In the morning, the need for good management of livestock in general was explained to the farmers, then the training went on informing them about the various diseases that may occur in chickens and ducks and which vaccinations are required against it. After lunch, they got a brief explanation of how to vaccinate and then they could put this into practice under the guidance of two trainers.

Some farmers had left their poultry in the night coop, so immediately all animals could be vaccinated, but many farmers do not have a chicken coop. The chickens and ducks are scurrying around freely and sleep at night under the house (ducks) or go to roost somewhere in a tree (chickens). However, they get food at the end of the day and so they gather at a fixed location. That would be the time to catch them for vaccination.

Lies and Nelline (our regular volunteers in Laos) were lucky to be able to attend the first day of the training and they could participate in the vaccination of some chickens and ducks. An amazing experience. The photos in this story may give you an idea hereof.

The vaccinations will be repeated every three months, at the same time some issues will be monitored, such as how many chickens died, how many eggs were laid, how many chicks born etc. This monitoring also takes place in the reference village of Ban Thamouang, so that at the end of the project a comparison can be made of a village with vaccinated poultry to a village where poultry has not been vaccinated.

More on this later …