Dr. Anna Grace Awilli

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Dr. Anna Grace Awilli

Veterinary services
(1)

19/08/2023

Before and After.

Condition: Inflammation of v***a, secondary to myiasis (Invasion of live tissue with fly larvae)

Treatment:
1. Flushing with acaricide to expel larvae.
2. Disinfection of wound with iodine solution
3. Systemic antibiotic treatment with Penicillin-streptomycin.

Recovery time: 2 weeks.

17/07/2023

One farming day! 🙃❤️🙃

26/06/2023

The rainy season brings with it a lot of disease challenges. Pneumonia, Worms, and Clostridial infections are particularly common. Preventive treatment at the start of the rainy season ensures that the herd is prepped for the challenge ahead.

20/06/2023

How many did you count? 🤔

18/06/2023

Baby shark dodo dodo dodo! ☺️🤩🥳
Baby shark dodo dodo dodo! 😍👶👼

Ooops! Did I get my baby names wrong again? I bet you would, if this kid down here was yours! How could you tell it was the same kid!

This kid had a skin condition that caused it to lose its hair coat. Not only that, the skin started to form crusts and also hardened focal lesions of the same.

Diagnosis: Dermatophilosis, a bacterial skin disease caused by the bacteria Dermatophilus congolensis. Most commonly affects goats, cattle and sheep. In sheep, the condition is called "lumpy wool"

Treatment: Oxytetracycline 20%, three (03) doses every other day (48 hours).

Recovery is swift. Complete recovery and full hair re-growth within three weeks.

10/06/2023

😁🤩😃💃🏿 Visitation day: an update!

Don't we all love visitors? Animals love visitors too, and especially their nice vet! Today, we hang out together, chilled out under the bright sun, and caught up with one another!

I share my findings in this video! The best news is at the end of the video, an update on Lo**ta who we operated on to fix her hernia which another goat caused her, when it gored into her abdomen, causing her intestines to spill into the area between the skin and the abdominal wall. Hint: All is well!

09/06/2023

🩷🩷🩷

It's visitation day at the farm! An update on how things are going follows soon!

01/06/2023

🫣 We can't see!

One individual, a newly born kid, was reported with both eyes reddened, and mostly closed. There was also tearing and a white discharge which sealed the eyelids shut.

Within 3 days, other individuals had also picked up the condition with similar signs; reddening, tearing, and clouding of the cornea in two individuals in both eyes. In one case, blindness had set in too.

Diagnosis: Pink eye, caused by either of the following bacteria: Mycoplasma conjunctivae, Chlamydia species, or other species of Mycoplasma.

Treatment:
1. Systemic antibiotic therapy with Oxytetracycline 20%, a broad-spectrum antibiotic.
2. Topical eye ointment in the eye, 2 to 4 times a day, as needed

Recovery is quick and clears efficiently! 3 to 5 days for mild to moderate cases. Severe cases take a longer time, even up to two weeks.

All these individuals fully recovered following treatment. The worst affected only partially regained her sight but improvement continues to be observed daily.

01/06/2023

Let's talk about s*x, baby! 😜🤭

Wait! Don't go! You're not on the wrong page! I promise you, this is useful!

This string of mucus hanging from the v***a is the best and most reliable sign of heat. As a farmer in animal production, heat detection is one of the most important skills you need to have. It is especially important in dairy farming.

There is no class today. Just a phenomenon to see!

Get this image in your mind, and you have just unlocked a very powerful key in the reproductive management of your herd!

26/05/2023

Back to the classroom!

My brain and legs rusty from not having ridden a motorcycle in so long! With so many patients needing help, I need to decrease response time between cases.

In many cases, only time stands between life and death! Now we need to fix that!

Sadly, I do not have a bike of my own, yet. We'll get there, though 🤗

24/05/2023

😂🤸🏽‍♀️⤵️⬆️↪️🤸🏾‍♂️😂

A minor in Veterinary Gymnastics sure would have helped! Nonetheless, anything for the animals, right? 🤷🏾‍♀️

The quarterly health checks and preventive treatments are here!

1. Deworming
2. Antibiotic treatment (for those showing signs of general ill-health)
3. Multivitamin
4. Herd health plan review and tweaks.

Have you checked on your herd? Do not wait for sickness to first come in. Remember always that prevention is better than cure!

📷 No low I won't reach for these guys! 🥰✋🏾

23/05/2023

😍 Do you love babies?! Oops! Kids, actually 🤭

Don't we all? Well, to make sure that they live long and happy, we got to start them off on the right treatments. Immediately they are born, dip their navels in iodine!

These were born three (03) days earlier and their navels were not dipped, but we were not going to take any chances! So we still dipped them anyway.

Now that's one thing you know to do! As soon as they're born, navel in iodine!

22/05/2023

What relief! 🥰

It is not so pretty, coming to it, though, is it? This is a video of an abscess being drained from a goat suffering from caseous lymphadenitis 😥. I know, you may not like this video and that is okay!

Instead, you may want to learn about this disease. I talk about it here: https://fb.watch/kH2SGKUNYZ/

Treatment: Draining the abscess, applying iodine and systemic antibiotic treatment with Penicillin-streptomycin

Recovery is excellent! Wounds heal very fast and very well, in about a week.

Remember, the infection will not be cleared from the animal's system, but the animal will feel much better without the abscesses. Please note that the condition might re-occur due to stress.

20/05/2023

Do you see that? 🥰

Yes, that is a calf suckling its mother but do you see the wounds on the neck and near the ear of the calf? That is where the story is.

This is how a lot of farmers and herdsmen in rural areas treat East Coast Fever, a tick-borne disease of cattle caused by the protozoan parasite, Theileria parva and one of whose principle signs is swelling of the lymphnodes.

What do they do? They burn the area where the swollen lymphnodes are, usually with a burning piece of wood!

Sooo, does it work? 🤔

There is some success with this method and I will tell you why it works!

You see, the ticks that transmit the parasite like to lodge near and inside of the ear because the skin there is soft and easy to prick, for sucking blood. These ticks even get their name, "the brown ear tick" from this practice of theirs.

When they bite to suck blood from the animal, the parasites make their way into blood stream and eventually the nearest lymphnodes! Those would be the lymphnodes near the head and neck. What's more, it is inside the lymphnodes that the parasites first grow and multiply before they are released to continue to the rest of the body and cause real havoc.

Do you now see how the herdsmen and farmers figured it out? 🤔 Burn the lymphnodes where the parasites are multiplying, and kill most of them, so that only a few that the body can fight, may move into the body! Genius, ey! 😁😀

Hmmm, yes! Yet, success rate is not as high as when treated with proper veterinary medicines. 😒

So, what is the best way to treat East Coast Fever?

Parvaquone or Buparvaquone. Success rate of 80% - 90% respectively. Would you rather not bet on that? 🥰

20/05/2023

Draining an abscess can be really painful, both for the animal, the veterinarian and the assistants!

I used to think that you could not make a good vet if you didn't have a "strong" heart, which largely means being able to work without minding about the pain the animal feels! That could never be me, because I feel their pain and it makes working really hard! Seeing an animal in pain is very distressing! 😓

Then I discovered local anaesthesia, and everything changed! A few mls into the surrounding areas of work and what should have been a fight makes work really easy. The patients feels very little to no pain, it remains still as you work, and your assistants are not distressed either. Everybody wins!

If you're an animal health professional, and especially if the pain of animals causes you distress, consider using local anaesthesia for some procedures. It is very cheap, after all.

A 30ml bottle of lignocaine costs about Ugx 3,000-4,000 and you need only use a few mls at a time.

📷 applying iodine solution into an an abscess pocket, after draining the abscess. Iodine kills bacteria in the area, preventing its re-occurrence.

18/05/2023

Did you have your milk today? 🥰🥛🍼

When these kids were born, their mother could not produce milk. That night was a hectic one! We had to travel some 20km in the night and far into a deep village to take pasteurised cow milk for the kids, as a substitute, or they would not have survived the hunger. The shops in the area didn't have any milk, much less at that time of the night!

We also treated the mother with oxytocin to stimulate her milk production, which did return some two (02) days later, but she was not willing to nurse them. So, we raised them on cow milk. At this point in the video, they were about three weeks old.

Diagnosis: Agalactia, but we did not determine if it was infectious or not. Since this was the dry season, we put it down to inadequate nutrition.

Treatment: Oxytocin

15/05/2023

Hmmmm! Nom nom nom...🥰🤩😍

Breakfast!

Question: Can cows really eat dry grass? Yes.

It's difficult for a lot of people to appreciate this, unless they see it with their own eyes, and once they do, it changes everything.

It now becomes easy to front pasture preservation technologies such as haymaking, as a means to preserve feed during the rainy seasons when pasture is plenty, for use in the dry seasons when pasture is scarce.

Fun fact: I find the sight and sound of cows eating weirdly satisfying and relaxing! 😁

📷: Gulu Uganda Country Dairy

12/05/2023

Administering vegetable oil as treatment for bloat.

Raven returned from pasture, looking quite unlike her usual self. She was listless, would not eat, and overall appeared uncomfortable. She was also seen grinding her teeth, a sign of pain. Tellingly, her stomach was distended on the left side.

Diagnosis: (Frothy) Bloat. Caused by binge-eating too large quantities of highly digestible leguminous fodder. Legumes combine with the rumen contents to produce a foamy mixture that traps rumen gases, which should normally be belched out.

Treatment: 200ml of vegetable (cooking) oil to break apart the foam and free the gas. Recovery is within a couple of hours.

📷 Shows the technique of administering the oil.

12/05/2023

World Veterinary Day celebrations, 29th April 2023.

09/05/2023

Managing caseous lymphadenitis.

Caseous lymphadenitis is an infectious disease of goats and sheep caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. It affects the lymphatic system, resulting in abscesses (pus) in the lymph nodes and internal organs.

Treatment is by use of antibiotics and draining the abscesses. The infection, however, does not completely disappear from the animal's body once established.

09/05/2023

This group of adult rabbits was reported with crusted and painful ears. Other signs observed included scratching, head shaking and/or tilting, and marked loss of hearing mostly on one side of the ear. The owners also observed the presence of mites in the ears, on the rabbits' bodies, and in their coop. Treatment was attempted with dudu dust (a common insecticide used to control fleas, ticks, mites, ants, etc); sprinkling it in the ears, on their bodies and in their coop. Slight improvement was observed, but the condition would quickly regress once application stopped.

Diagnosis: Ear canker, caused by a type of mite called psoroptes cuniculi. They are very tiny and take very close observation to see them, in which case one can see them in their large numbers attached to the skin of the inner side of the ear.

Treatment:
1. Ivermectin, given under the skin, three (03) times, once every week.
Recovery is immediate, with massive improvement observed after the first treatment.
2. Spraying the entire coup with acaricide to kill all the mites.

PS: I removed the ear crust and applied iodine topically to the freshly exposed skin, but I read from other sources that the crust should not be removed, as the process is very painful, not to mention the risk of causing an open wound which could complicate the condition. I did not know this at the time of treatment, and boy did they scream! I probably will not remove the crust in the next case I encounter. Apparently, the crust gets off on its own as healing progresses.

Total recovery time: 3 weeks.

📷 Progress. Last frame: weeks later, following full recovery.

07/05/2023

One of science's best kept secrets, in my opinion? That surgery is basically sewing/tailoring but for meat.

Everything else is to make sure that this sewing/tailoring is done in the cleanest environment possible (least wound contamination) and with the least pain possible to the patient.

In Veterinary practice, especially in rural areas, achieving an ideal sterile environment is often times impossible. In this case, we worked within the limits of what was hygienically possible. For pain management, we used local anaesthesia (lignocaine).

06/05/2023

Sophia, female goat, had an abscess drained from the back of her leg. Other goats in the herd with the same condition had also had the same procedure done on them and all recovered uneventfully.

Unfortunately for Sophia, houseflies accessed the wound, laid their eggs in it and the wound became infested with larvae (maggots). When this happens, the condition is called "myiasis"

Treatment:
1. Flushed the wound with acaricide spray to expel the larvae. Needed to do this for three days
2. Shaved around the wound, and cleaned it with a solution of hydrogen peroxide, making sure to remove all dead tissue around and inside the wound
3. Flushed first with normal saline, then metronidazole solution.
4. Poured iodine solution
5. Applied metronidazole gel
6. Soaked gauze in iodine solution and packed it over the wound.
7. Bandaged the site.
8. Repeated daily, and reduced frequency as recovery progressed.
9. Concurrent systemic antibiotic treatment with penicillin-streptomycin for five (05) days.

Recovery time: 3 weeks for the worst to go away, and an additional 4 weeks for complete recovery.

📷 Progress in pictures. Last picture: Sophie delivered a pair of twins last weekend. She'd been pregnant through the entire ordeal! ❤️🥹😪

13/12/2022

A different perspective after all work is done. Farmer is happy. Patients are covered for at least three months.

13/12/2022

A different perspective. Work is done. Farmer is happy. Patients are covered for at least three months.

09/12/2022

It is said that the late Professor Johnson Acon, lecturer of surgery at Makerere University Veterinary School, was a keen student of his craft. Even after having performed surgeries for decades, he still sat down to read about every individual case before he approached the surgical room. It did not matter that he had encountered the case several times over the decades. It did not matter that the procedure was routine, like a hysterectomy (spay). He still read about it.

As young professionals, we are often intimidated by those who have gone ahead of us in the field, with their seemingly vast knowledge and polished skills. In trying to hide our newness and unfamiliarity with the cases we encounter, we unknowingly rob ourselves of the opportunity to learn and build our skills.

Let us continue to build our knowledge and our skills. That a professor and seasoned surgeon could still refer to a textbook before handling a case should give us the permission to do the same and also diffuse the stigma of seeking more knowledge when we find that we fall short.

02/12/2022

Regal, athletic and haughty.

The long-horned Ankole is an African phenomenon, and specifically, a Ugandan-Rwandan phenomenon of their respective Ankole and Watusi tribes. They are of dual nomenclature; being known as Ankole cattle in Uganda and Watutsi cattle in Rwanda. Both names are used interchangeably even though the Ankole name is more popular.

Interestingly, herds of Ankole cattle that were transported to the USA in the 1960s have somehow become a "modern" "American" breed of cattle, renamed to the hyphenated "Ankole-Watusi" cattle. Their origins are also being formally referred to as American. There is a breed society as well, called the "Ankole-Watusi International Registry" that was set up in 1983 with the role to protect the breed in its distinctness.

Which begs the question: "To whom does this breed of cattle really belong?"

30/07/2022

Should emergency response focus on only saving lives or on protecting livelihoods as well? A livelihoods-based approach to emergency response is increasingly seen as the better approach. Even as support is geared towards saving lives, protecting and strengthening livestock assets provides valuable support to on-going relief initiatives. In this way, communities recover faster from shocks in the short run and also build resilience against future shocks in the long run.

Address

Acholi Inn
Kotido

Telephone

+256782991414

Website

http://www.awilli.net/

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Videos

One farming day! 🙃❤️🙃 #veterinarymedicine #ruralvet

How many did you count? 🤔 #goatfarming #goatfarmingbusiness #veterinarymedicine #veterinary

😁🤩😃💃🏿 Visitation day: an update! Don't we all love visitors? Animals love visitors too, and especially their nice vet! Today, we hang out together, chilled out under the bright sun, and caught up with one another! I share my findings in this video! The best news is at the end of the video, an update on Lolita who we operated on to fix her hernia which another goat caused her, when it gored into her abdomen, causing her intestines to spill into the area between the skin and the abdominal wall. Hint: All is well!

Let's talk about s*x, baby! 😜🤭 Wait! Don't go! You're not on the wrong page! I promise you, this is useful! This string of mucus hanging from the vulva is the best and most reliable sign of heat. As a farmer in animal production, heat detection is one of the most important skills you need to have. It is especially important in dairy farming. There is no class today. Just a phenomenon to see! Get this image in your mind, and you have just unlocked a very powerful key in the reproductive management of your herd!

Back to the classroom! My brain and legs rusty from not having ridden a motorcycle in so long! With so many patients needing help, I need to decrease response time between cases. In many cases, only time stands between life and death! Now we need to fix that! Sadly, I do not have a bike of my own, yet. We'll get there, though 🤗

What relief! 🥰 It is not so pretty, coming to it, though, is it? This is a video of an abscess being drained from a goat suffering from caseous lymphadenitis 😥. I know, you may not like this video and that is okay! Instead, you may want to learn about this disease. I talk about it here: https://fb.watch/kH2SGKUNYZ/ Treatment: Draining the abscess, applying iodine and systemic antibiotic treatment with Penicillin-streptomycin Recovery is excellent! Wounds heal very fast and very well, in about a week. Remember, the infection will not be cleared from the animal's system, but the animal will feel much better without the abscesses. Please note that the condition might re-occur due to stress.

Draining an abscess can be really painful, both for the animal, the veterinarian and the assistants! I used to think that you could not make a good vet if you didn't have a "strong" heart, which largely means being able to work without minding about the pain the animal feels! That could never be me, because I feel their pain and it makes working really hard! Seeing an animal in pain is very distressing! 😓 Then I discovered local anaesthesia, and everything changed! A few mls into the surrounding areas of work and what should have been a fight makes work really easy. The patients feels very little to no pain, it remains still as you work, and your assistants are not distressed either. Everybody wins! If you're an animal health professional, and especially if the pain of animals causes you distress, consider using local anaesthesia for some procedures. It is very cheap, after all. A 30ml bottle of lignocaine costs about Ugx 3,000-4,000 and you need only use a few mls at a time. 📷 applying iodine solution into an an abscess pocket, after draining the abscess. Iodine kills bacteria in the area, preventing its re-occurrence.

Did you have your milk today? 🥰🥛🍼 When these kids were born, their mother could not produce milk. That night was a hectic one! We had to travel some 20km in the night and far into a deep village to take pasteurised cow milk for the kids, as a substitute, or they would not have survived the hunger. The shops in the area didn't have any milk, much less at that time of the night! We also treated the mother with oxytocin to stimulate her milk production, which did return some two (02) days later, but she was not willing to nurse them. So, we raised them on cow milk. At this point in the video, they were about three weeks old. Diagnosis: Agalactia, but we did not determine if it was infectious or not. Since this was the dry season, we put it down to inadequate nutrition. Treatment: Oxytocin

Hmmmm! Nom nom nom...🥰🤩😍 Breakfast! Question: Can cows really eat dry grass? Yes. It's difficult for a lot of people to appreciate this, unless they see it with their own eyes, and once they do, it changes everything. It now becomes easy to front pasture preservation technologies such as haymaking, as a means to preserve feed during the rainy seasons when pasture is plenty, for use in the dry seasons when pasture is scarce. Fun fact: I find the sight and sound of cows eating weirdly satisfying and relaxing! 😁 📷: Gulu Uganda Country Dairy

Administering vegetable oil as treatment for bloat. Raven returned from pasture, looking quite unlike her usual self. She was listless, would not eat, and overall appeared uncomfortable. She was also seen grinding her teeth, a sign of pain. Tellingly, her stomach was distended on the left side. Diagnosis: (Frothy) Bloat. Caused by binge-eating too large quantities of highly digestible leguminous fodder. Legumes combine with the rumen contents to produce a foamy mixture that traps rumen gases, which should normally be belched out. Treatment: 200ml of vegetable (cooking) oil to break apart the foam and free the gas. Recovery is within a couple of hours. 📷 Shows the technique of administering the oil.

Managing caseous lymphadenitis. Caseous lymphadenitis is an infectious disease of goats and sheep caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. It affects the lymphatic system, resulting in abscesses (pus) in the lymph nodes and internal organs. Treatment is by use of antibiotics and draining the abscesses. The infection, however, does not completely disappear from the animal's body once established.

One of science's best kept secrets, in my opinion? That surgery is basically sewing/tailoring but for meat. Everything else is to make sure that this sewing/tailoring is done in the cleanest environment possible (least wound contamination) and with the least pain possible to the patient. In Veterinary practice, especially in rural areas, achieving an ideal sterile environment is often times impossible. In this case, we worked within the limits of what was hygienically possible. For pain management, we used local anaesthesia (lignocaine).

Introducing the Dr. Anna Grace Awilli YouTube page.

We have a YouTube channel. Why read when we could simply talk about these things? The full video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/Mo9-ZbgrsjI

Sampling fish for examination

FISH FARMING IN A SEMI-ARID AREA PART IV The algae in the pond made it difficult to see the fish properly. So, we went in to pick them out and actually get to see, touch and feel them.