VETS are a rare breed in African rural areas. Medical practitioners may be roped in when the situation is dire – as was the case with Eric, a mature ostrich from Oudtshoorn in South Africa. He was brought to Swaziland as one of the first breeding males for the Simunye sugar company’s ostrich project, their meat being venerated by global foodies with more money than sense, while the feathers and skin had been in fashion for centuries.

About a year after taking up residence in the subtropical bush, Eric was reported to be uttering a peculiar sound one afternoon. Nick Langton, who doubled as the piggery manager, phoned to say that the bird had a large wound in his neck, probably from the razor wire on top of the project’s game fence. When I arrived, four sweating men were holding Eric down on the baking earth, one on each leg as an ostrich’s rear talon can disembowel almost anything, another lying on his huge wing which had been deliberately dislocated to limit movement, and Nick holding the mouth shut with the type of wrestling lock currently popular with heavily armed American policeman ‘calming’ innocent civilians and bystanders.

There was a circumferential laceration of Eric’s long, long neck from which issued a not unmusical honk, reminiscent of an oboe. Fortunately his oesophagus or food pipe was visible through the rent and appeared intact. Ten mattress sutures of surgical nylon were rapidly inserted and the honking ceased. Eric was released. Discretion being the better part of valour, I suggested to Nick that the sutures be removed in 10 days time – by a qualified vet, thank you very much.

Farmers do become emotionally attached to their animals and Zonko Ndlovu was one. He brought in a squealing pig to casualty. It had broken its hind leg – could we help? We tried an aluminium splint first. It failed. However, an amalgam of gypsum (as used in plaster of paris) and an unidentified adhesive from the sugar crushing mill did immobilise the limb long enough for the hitherto tripod porker to emerge two weeks later, stiff but trottable.

Like Ndlovu, my wife forms bonds with animals, in her case the chickens at our first farm near the Fula Falls on the Nile. In each building there was an isolation ‘ward’ (for cases of diarrhoea), an ‘intensive care unit’ ( for the seriously sick ), and a ‘premature infant’ room ( where day-old chicks and upwards, trampled or crushed in life’s battle to survive, were warmed and cossetted). Anne Marie addressed several of the chickens and turkeys by name, the consequence being her refusal to eat them after Judgement Day has dawned.

My family have never forgiven me for doing in a huge German Shepherd that we had inherited from an emigrating neighbour. Bismark’s fate was sealed when he terrified two small children near our house a few days after standing on hindlegs and putting his paws on the shoulders of an appalled African Union diplomat who was enjoying the evening air on the terrace of the adjacent hotel. The beast was heavily anaesthetised then Rod, an always-helpful friend, nervously attempted the coup de grace; at the second and final shot, we looked up from our unpleasant task, relieved – only to find a crowd of European tourists on a nearby bank looking down at us in anger.

Cassimir, also known as the Duchess, a middle-aged feline dowager, all black with white paws and neck, joined our family in the 1980s. Fearless – leaping onto and diving off a marauding Alsation, mischievous – ambushing fellow cats and visitors from under tropical shrubs, and possessive – of the comfiest sofa in the house, she became seriously ill one autumn day. We drove her the 120kms to the vet, declined his offer – “Sorry, chaps, the old girl’s too far gone now. I’ll just put her down” – and drove her back.

Anne Marie made a special fish broth, administered with an eye dropper. A glucose saline drip was inserted under her skin. That night she started howling in distress; I signed the clinic’s dangerous drugs register for a morphine tablet, coated it with Vaseline, and stuck it up the Duchess’s bum. Whatever the diagnosis, it would allow her a gentle and dignified demise.

Anne Marie woke me before dawn.

“I think she’s died.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve just had a dream of a beautiful blue sky – with lots of pink mice floating in it.”

Cassimir was on the floor, under her favourite table – and alive.

Soon she was swallowing the broth without help. Two days later, we found her doing what seemed to be repeated push-ups and stretching exercises using the table’s crossbars...

Dr David Vost studied medicine at Glasgow University and is currently working at a hospital in Swaziland. He and his family live on a small farm in Northern Uganda near the Albert Nile. davidvostsz@gmail.com