An unusual feeding situation...

[elevan]

A lactating Ugandan woman has resorted to breastfeeding her orphaned kids (baby goats) following the death of their mother.

Pictures of the weird story which featured prominently on local TV stations made a front page headline in a number of Ugandan newspapers, including Daily Onion, and expectedly prompted a lot of discussions, with veterinarians alongside others making varied submissions on it.

For Ajwang, mother of 3, her unusual soft-spot for the kids was informed by economic circumstances. Having lost the mother of the kids, Ajwang said she was compelled to think out a means of saving the young goats, whose survival, for her, could make a difference in her economic circumstances.

Faced with a staring economic catastrophe, she came up with something ingenious, using her lactating status to advantage, by breastfeeding her young one alongside the baby goats.

It has so far worked out well, even though sometimes the kids and the human kid struggle for the breasts in a very acrimonious manner.

She also suffers from the pumping and hard-sucking style of the goats, which is unlike the human mode.

Her husband, she said, agreed to the recourse, given its importance in ensuring the familys economic future.

Narrating her story to the newspaper, she said she used to farm for survival but the climatic conditions had not been helpful for some time now, thus affecting dismally the outcome of her enterprise.

She managed however to buy the female goat which produced the two kids. When the mother of the kids died abruptly, she was devastated, given the hope she had that someday they would grow and change her economic gloom to prosperity.

I got a big chance which I always say was from God that I got some little savings that enabled me to buy a goat. This goat was my everything. I looked at it as the most turning point in my life (sic).
When the goat died after delivering two kids, she said, to tell you the truth I also kind of died. That day I was frustrated because it had just delivered two bouncing little ones.

The death coincided with the breastfeeding of her young boy and so she quickly thought out something ingenious but bizarre.

I said I would spare some litres of milk in my breasts and give the little poor animals just to survive. Ever since that time, I have been feeding them every time I breastfeed my son, she said.

Having trained them to come to her sometimes, she said they tried to find their way to her brassiere and even struggled with her little boy for space at the nipples.

The only problem is that they suckle with a lot of force that sometimes I feel like I am drying up so easily. That pump and humping thing really makes me weak, she said, adding that my son has grown to like and learn how to feed with them, although at times he flexes with them until I have come and separated them (sic).

She intends buying, someday, a cow through the two baby goats she is breastfeeding currently, shrugging off the gossips about her unnatural behavior. I dont care what the people outside are saying as long as I achieve what I am aiming at (at) the end of the day, she said.

She said, You look at how skyrocketing prices of food and other things (sic). If as a woman I dont stand up and use what I have then we shall starve. Its my life, my responsibility. I make my own choices. Im going to look after myself, my son and my two goats no matter what.

A veterinarian, John Kazibwe, said it was uncommon and unheard of for one species to provide milk to another.

He however said that it was better for any species to have its own milk. He recalled instances where a sow gave milk to puppies and dogs to cats.

Even though the goats were not going to be harmed, according to him, he was concerned about the possible health challenge emanating from the strange feeding pattern.

The Makere University associate professor of anthropology said women in a section of Papua New Guinea breastfed pigs. He said he was concerned about the goats developing long-term behavioural issues.
The animals, he remarked, did not appear to be suffering.


Source: A.R. Gomda with filed reports

 

[Roll farms]

Oh my.

Now THAT, folks, is dedication.

 

[Goatherd]

Necessity is the mother of invention. (no pun intended)

 

[elevan]

Necessity is the mother of invention. (no pun intended)

 

[GoatFaerie]

Necessity is the mother of invention. (no pun intended)

hahaha! amen to that!

 

[jmsim93]

Wow!!! Here in America, we feel we are deprived if we do not have the "latest and greatest" of things this country has to offer!!! Thank you for posting this and reminding me how very blessed I am and how different my life could be if I lived somewhere else!

 

[SuburbanFarmChic]

I saw a news article a while ago about someone breastfeeding a piglet. In fact her tribe did it as a matter of practice but I don't remember the exact details.

 

[kstaven]

A goodly part of our population would perish if they had it half as tough as people in other areas of the world do.

 

[Ms. Research]

A goodly part of our population would perish if they had it half as tough as people in other areas of the world do.

X2 and Amen to that !

 

[SuburbanFarmChic]

A friend of mine just gives it to the chickens if she has to express because she took medication or had a drink. She says it's better than seeing it go to waste.