This week we have had some new arrivals at the WomenCraft office. We are trying to improve our Artisans opportunities and as a part of this initiative a goat rearing project is being implemented.

We have brought three milking goats, a pregnant mother goat, a boy and a little female kid. When they arrived the male goat was very loud, bleating constantly and trying to escape from his rope. He has calmed down a lot now though, as the boys that live next door have been feeding them constantly.

It is particularly good that they are milking goats as many of our artisan groups struggle with malnutrition and these goats will provide them with valuable milk to drink as well as the opportunity for increasing their income.

I have been trying to learn how to milk the mother goat, but it has been difficult as the smaller female keeps escaping into the mother’s pen and drinking all her milk!

We have had to separate them by putting the male goat in-between them both. It sounds cruel but she is much too old to be still drinking her mother’s milk now and needs to start eating more grass and leaves.

Eventually we managed to get about half a pint of milk, and Ruth and I have started the process of making goat’s cheese – I very much hope that it works – I’ll keep you posted, it’s looking less solid than we would hope at the moment, but we only started yesterday.

We have named them after some of our products. From large to small we call them – ‘Tablemat’, ‘Trivit’ and ‘Coaster’. The baby inside the mother goat is pregnant with will be called ‘Wreath’. These names are after the different sizes of products we have in our product line because there are such distinct differences in the each goat’s size.

Our guards have been given new uniforms recently and here is a picture to show you how smart they look! We said they looked like soldiers and they were very proud.