Seline the Goat

In my great hurry to tell everyone about my snake sighting, I totally forgot to blog about a great honour that has been bestowed on me.

Yesterday morning, one of our female goats gave birth to 3 kids. A baby girl was the first to come into the world and as luck would have it, she was turned the wrong way and needed quite a bit of assistance from Lawrence, our Caretaker of the Goats (and head Gardener). By the time she came out, Lawrence thought she was dead and so focused his efforts on the other two kids about to be born. Two of our volunteers were there and they noted that the baby female was breathing and so Lawrence's capable assistants cleaned her up while he welcomed her two brothers into the world as well. I got over to the goat farm to see them a few hours after they were born - really, really sweet. The males were doing really well, already up on their rickety legs and wobbling about. The wee girl was not walking but allowed me to hold her and she suckled on my fingers for a bit before bleating her displeasure when there was no milk forthcoming. Lawrence announced to the volunteers present that the female kid was to be named "Shelley". At least that's what he meant... however, the Tamils have a tough time saying my name as they don't have the "sh" sound in their vocabulary. They also generally spell English words phonetically (I do the same for Tamil words)... so my goat's name is spelled Seline.... and pronounced Seelii (I'm not sure why they've added the "ne" at the end as they don't pronounce it - one of those English language tricks... you know, the silent "ne").

What's interesting is that the goat kids only get their mothers milk for 5 days and then they are switched to cow's milk. This is because we need every drop of goat's milk for our babies and toddlers. Since starting the goat farm, and putting the children on goat's milk, the number of illnesses including GI issues and pneumonia have dropped drastically. Our babies also put on weight faster and keep the weight. So our goats are really quite an important part of the project and contribute to the well being of our babies.

I'll stop by to visit with Seline on my way to the guesthouse again today. Not sure if she'll make it or not, given her traumatic birth, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.