A brand new elephant barn for Valli
We’re celebrating this week, because we’ve just been granted planning permission to build a brand new, purpose designed home for Valli our Temple Elephant. Valli has been with us since 1981, and for the last 30 years has been living next to the Shakti Temple, with her keeper Swami Karuna.
Elephants don’t sleep much at night; they prefer to doze during the day. Her new barn will give her more space to move around in the evenings, and will have lots of luxuries like deep filled sand pits (so she can dig around to find treats), heated curvy walls (for leaning / dozing against), and knobbly tree trunks (for scratching those hard-to-reach places). The main feature will be a waterfall and plunge pool, so she can also bathe whenever she wants. It will be an elephant barn like no other!
We’ve already started digging the foundations in the field behind the greenhouse, near the Shakti Temple. We are hoping to use local contractors to help with the construction, and we hope to have the project finished within the year. The photos below show our proposed design, and there are some nice shots of Valli surveying the site.
