Oshakati
A farmer at Oshipumbushomugongo village in Ompundja Constituency of Oshana Region lost at least five cattle within a few minutes due to suspected snakebites.
Gabriel Shilongo said the incident took place on Sunday morning while his cattle were grazing in a fellow villager’s yard.
He said the owner of the yard noticed that one of the cattle was lying still, while he was trying to drive them out of his yard and it died a few moments later.
The neighbour then tried to drive the rest of the cattle out of his fenced yard, but three others collapsed in front of the gate, a few metres apart.
He then informed Shilongo, who found a fifth animal fighting for its life, but it also died shortly after. The sixth animal survived after villagers fed it water soaked with the neem plant, believed to be a natural remedy for both humans and animals.
Veterinarian Dr Helena Shilongo attended to the cattle and said – after ruling out all possible causes of the problem – that the only possibility left is a snakebite.
“It cannot be plant poisoning, because the postmortem would reveal tracks of green leaves in the intestines, but it was not the case.
“I also suspected water poisoning, because sometimes the water contains some chemicals, like lead and mercury, that are highly toxic. But we ruled that out too, because if it was water poisoning, other livestock that consumed water from the same water point would have died too.
“Not even anthrax would kill such a number of animals in a day. The only possibility is a snakebite,” she said.
According to the vet, villagers also confirmed her suspicion of snakebites as the cause of the problem, as Oshipumbushomugongo and nearby villages are said to be infested with black mambas.
She said if an animal is bitten by a black mamba it will likely die immediately.
Furthermore, the postmortem reveals that the animals’ blood and blood veins had turned darker than usual, which, according to the veterinarian, is a typical symptom of a snakebite.
She urged cattle owners and villagers to refrain from eating animals that died from unknown causes.