GRIFTU, Kenya (IRIN) - Fights broke when the relief truck rolled into the dusty rural communities of Griftu, a division of Wajir District, for the latest distribution of food. But it was not because people were starving. Their animals were.

"A pastoralist loves his animals even more than himself," said Daud Guliye, district livestock production officer for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. "A pastoralist will use his last shilling to save his animal before buying medicine for his children. He knows that if the animal dies, the family will not live."

Loaded on the relief truck was hay, to be distributed to needy livestock, some of which were so hungry that they had resorted to eating poisonous shrubs. Pastoralists in the Griftu area become so desperate that they were feeding tree pods and the thatch on their houses to their animals.

"Before, she could not stand up," said Ahmed Mohamed Abdullah, nodding towards an emaciated cow eating a few handfuls of hay under the shade of a tree. "Four or five people had to help her stand. Now she can move and graze. I really appreciate it and it has assisted my cow. If it was not for the hay this animal would have died."

About 30 percent of the livestock in Wajir District was affected by prolonged drought in the region and one in 10 of that group had died, said Guliye, who assisted Oxfam-GB with the hay relief effort. The 20,000 bales of hay distributed were fed to 2,402 cattle, 500 sheep and goats and 92 burden animals, benefiting 2,104 households. More than half the animals benefiting from the assistance would have died if they had not received the hay, he said. Animals too weak to stand were up and grazing again within three days of receiving the relief fodder.

The hay, which came from the Nakuru area of Kenya, appears to have been a big success, although it was a costly effort, said Guliye. One 18-kilogramme bale costs 180 shillings (US $1.20) and it costs at least as much to transport it. Some pastoralists said they could have used the hay one or two months earlier. Distribution began in March, a couple of weeks before the first rains fell. Relief committees were recruited to identify the neediest families.

"We would appreciate it if we get this hay when there is serious drought," said Abdulahi Mohamed, chairman of the Pastoralist Association of Griftu. "Most all of us here have not gone to school. Our livelihood depends on livestock."

People in drought-stricken areas have been known to feed their own relief food to their livestock. They might only have one cow giving milk, which makes up 70 percent of their children's diet. "They will tolerate one meal a day if it means that the animal stays alive and produces something. That way they can cope," said Emma Naylor of Oxfam in Nairobi.

There are different kinds of pastoralists and livelihoods, depending on the kind of animal they keep. Camels normally do better than other animals in a drought, but many died during the El Niņo flooding in 1997. Cattle can trek, but need pasture and plentiful water; goats cannot trek as far, but can survive by browsing on woody shrubs and bushes. For pastoralists, losing their livestock is the equivalent of westerners losing their house, their savings and their job.

"If these people have lost their livelihoods, that is the economic base for education, for feeding themselves, for improving themselves in any way," Naylor said. "The livestock is their bank, is their asset. With the erosion of that asset you have nothing left."

The Pastoralist Association of Griftu, which was formed in 1995, aims to address the needs of pastoralists. It stocks drugs for livestock in its little whitewashed office building in Griftu, but has had problems getting fellow pastoralists to pay debts for those drugs. Chairman Mohamed said the association's revolving fund had been depleted, and the group was constrained in terms of the assistance it could give. Veterinaires Sans Frontieres has sold drugs at a reduced price to the association and has also been operating an emergency veterinary relief program in the Wajir area. It is impossible, however, to respond to all the widespread needs.

Sheikh Omar Sheikh Abdikadir, who is camped with his wife and five children in a hut covered with thatch, cloth and woven relief food bags about 10 km outside Wajir, together with four other families, says some of his milk-producing goats are suffering from an illness which has caused them to become bloated and in need of veterinary attention. "If they were healthy they would be more productive, and then the health of the mother and children would improve as well," he said.

His family is the beneficiary of another relief programme that targets livestock and livelihoods through restocking. He lost all his livestock in the drought in 1991 and 1992, forcing his family to move to Wajir town. "We had a lot of hunger, but later food came and we were able survive," he said. He also taught the Koran to earn money.

Eventually, Sheikh Abdikadir accumulated debts, and decided in 1996 that he would go to Somalia and ask his family there for help. He was gone for eight months, and his wife heard that he had been killed. Meanwhile, she and their children were living in desperate conditions outside Wajir. Oxfam intervened and restocked the family with 30 sheep and goats. Sheikh Abdikadir returned to Wajir with 15 sheep and goats of his own. He had to sell them to repay his debts, but he came out ahead. Livestock experts consider a per capita flock of 30 sheep or goats to be the minimum viable herd for pure pastoralists.

"I was very happy because I had already received the animals I went looking for," he said, referring to his wife's sheep and goats. "I was so happy I didn't know how to express it."

But the family lost several of the new animals in the El Niņo flooding in 1997, and had to sell eight animals during the drought last year before relief food arrived. "If we had received the relief food earlier, then we could have saved more animals," he said. "If the relief food stops, then we will have to depend on our few sheep and goats."