Meet My Goat Monday: Leela

With our nanny goat, Leela, recently having her babies, I wanted to ensure I told her full story. She was one of our first rescued goats and as morbid as it sounds, she probably wouldn't be alive today if we hadn't stepped in.

We got Leela just a couple of weeks after we adopted our first two rescue goats, Hobbes and Bender. I had goat fever and wanted more! Little to my husband's knowledge, I was searching on the local listings of Craigslist when I saw her. One grainy picture of a white doe with a description that included the fact that she was injured, limping, and unable to keep up with the herd at the goat breeding/meat/dairy farm where she was located.

I told my husband, contacted the seller, and we hopped in our Tahoe to go "meet her and see." The second we both saw her, we knew we weren't leaving without her.

This was her the day we brought her home:

That was September 2017.

We took it each day at a time and gave her food, medical care, and most importantly LOVE. She was shy and timid, weak in body and dull in spirit.

But we didn't give up. And slowly, ever so slowly, she BLOSSOMED.

She gained her strength back. She got healthy. And her spirit returned. Her personality began to emerge: shy but sweet as honey, smart as hell, and the gentlest of beings. Every milestone brought tears to our eyes. Eventually, she had us wrapped around her hooves and she knew she had it made...

But something was still missing. Whenever our neighbor's baby goats would yell and bleat at their feeding times, Leela would stand stock still facing their direction. As she gazed with her ears perked up, every now and then she'd let out a heartbreaking bleat of her own.

We took a chance and a risk to breed her since she was about 7 years at the time, with the Boer/Nubian cross buck from our neighbors down the road. Maybe if she had kids of her own, kids that wouldn't be taken from her if they were boys and kids she'd get to raise & be with for the rest of her life, her heart would at last be full. Her life would be complete.

And on March 18, just a few days before spring, she had her twins with the easiest birth imaginable. Here she is with them in late March/early April 2019:

Such a difference from Day 1 to now! She is the best goat mother anyone could ask for - attentive, patient, and nurturing. Being a mother suits her - she was obviously born to be a mom.

People may think we're nuts for thinking so, but she seems to be the happiest we've ever seen. Though she's still the same personality, her demeanor has changed. We are so grateful we made the right call in breeding her, and so honored to be her forever home, and the forever home of the two lives she got to bring into the world. We'll never separate them. We'll continue to give them the best care we can provide. And we will dote and spoil and love them forever.