Get it Done...

We have been busy as ever, showing, milking and appraisals this weekend.  Yes, we are having a Special Session to get this done.  My does all freshened in Jan and feb and by Sept of this year, would not appraise worth a hoot.  The lovely doe to the left is LTE Pervskia.  Took her almost a year to get pregnant and finally kid to The General, but worth the wait.  Look how lovely she is!

The photo to the right is Perovskia udder from the side and oh yes, she is on DHIR.  Probably not a world record holder for milk, but doing well for a seven year old doe.

This is Perovskia's udder from the rear, not to bad for a middle aged goat!  I clipped her up to see what she looked like and was going to take her to Florida, but tatoos faded and did not have time to retatoo.  Beautiful doe and beautiful kids.  We have decided to retain them for now and see how they grow out.

 This young doe is Alexa's daughter sired by Superb.  She is a lovely young lady and will clip her up and see what she looks like shortly.

 This doe is Blue's last daughter, Oldesouth Blue Ice.  She is striking with the black coat and blue eyes.  She is sired by *B Oldesouth Black Panther *S, bred back to Mr General.  She should be bagging up pretty soon.  A lovely doe.

Faith is pictured to the right, Sugar Moon Faith.  Nice topline and growing into her body, which is a mile long.  She is a mix of Cou Clair and Tog coloring, which is interesting.  She comes from Vermont from SGCH all around. She will be shown this year and bred this fall to a Diamond son.

This pixie faced little gal is out of LTE Silene 1*M, *D, *DAR E90, sired by Oldesouth Shell Foop, a General son.  She is very pregnant, bred back to the General.  We hope to show her as a first freshener or a yearling, depending on when she kids.

Enough for now, need to go milk the girls...

March is gone, April is wonderful!

The weather has been spectacular this past week.  March went by to fast and a couple of weekends ago, we were in Dade City, Fla at the Pasco County Fair Grounds.  We showed our Nigerian Dwarf Goats, 3 shows in two days.

My cousin Michelle lives near the show and stopped by to help show and see what this goat showing stuff was all about.  She enjoyed herself and I enjoyed seeing her and my Aunt Lauraine came up to say hi as well.  Fortunately UDiamond was showing like the Diva she is and won two Grand Champion SR Doe awards and even won Best of Breed over a lovely Champion Challenge doe in the third show.  UDiamond is a GCH (the grand comes from her having her milking stars).  Now the only thing she has left to earn is her SG (superior genetics award, which is a combination of milk production and linear appraisal) and her AR (advanced registry for milk production). 

To the right is UDiamond enjoying the lush spring pasture in Alabama. She is milked out and ready to fill up again, giving us the wonderful Nigerian Milk we so love!

The Diamond babies are growing up beautifully!  The buck is to the far right, Oldesouth ZV Marquise Diamond, The black doe is Oldesouth Black Diamond, and the red doe up front is Oldesouth Diva Diamond.  These kids are sired by NC Promisedland S Zyvox *S and we see a great future for them.  They have straight toplines, are wide and have their mother's class about them, the DIVA factor!  I prefer to bottle the special kids and milk mom from the beginning.  Udiamond milks so much milk, the babies would not be able to handle it and the excess can break down the udder.  So we pull the babies and make sure mom's udder is taken care of and the kids are tame, healthy and mom's darlings.  Mom has her girlish figure with no worries of ligament breakdown.

The Photo to the right are some of our milking does.  Post milking, I let them graze the wonderful spring grass and rye I planted last fall.  The does shaved have been or are being prepared for the show ring.  We will be having our Linear Appraisals done shortly and hope to have everyone shaved in preparation for that.  Life moves along quickly and the girls are doing so well this year.

This body belongs to Oldesouth Babette 1*M,+Dar.  She has been a bit of a handful, but is taming down nicely.  I want to show her once she will lead without having a total BF.  She does like her Animal Crackers.  She really does clean up quite well and looks even better then her sister Oldesouth Blue Alexa 1*M, *D, +DAR.  She is a larger doe, more capacity and I really like her.  We will see how she does in her Diva training and see if she will go to a show or two.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank everyone, our Clients, who have purchased a buck or a doe from us this year.  Sales has been off the charts and all the effort to milk test and the shows has proved the value of our stock.  Thank you everyone and if you have a question, I am here for you.  I personally take pride in my stock and wish everyone the best.

I want to give everyone a heart felt sincere wish of a Special Easter Weekend.  Remember Jesus and his suffering for our salvation.  It is a special time and we are grateful we could spend it with you and our Lord Jesus.

Have a Happy Easter all and God Bless you...

Busy Busy....

This month has been a whorl wind.  Kidding, bottle babies, milking, milk testing, and the beginning of lambing.  Most will lamb in March and April, but a few decided to be early birds, with a lovely set of ewe twins being born on Valentines Day.  Sunshine is the proud mother.

Our lovely Mini Long tail with her 2012 ewe lamb sired by Victor.  They are picture perfect. (left)

 Our 2012 bottle baby, SunRize.  Her mom Sunshine has lost half her udder and we have supplemented this little girl.  She is so cute and tame, running up to you to see if you have a bottle.  Her mom is compensating well so I do not anticipate having to supplement her very long.  We are down to once a day and she does not look like she has missed to many meals.  The Nigerian Goat milk is richer then the sheep milk.  Her sister is no where as robust as this little girl is.

 This is one of Sunshine's daughters with her set of twin ewe lambs.  She is baby sitting another lamb as well.

Spot and her second set of twin ewe lambs born the beginning of March.

Our magnificent Smokey Valley Victor, a mini Cheviot Ram.  He has his original tail.  See how long and full it is.  We have to watch him to make sure he does not get fly strike, but so far, there have been no problems with his long tail.  We dock our Mini Cheviot lambs here at Oldesouth.

 Beautiful Cou Clair, moon spotted doe sired by NC Promisedland S Zyvox.  She will be hanging around Oldesouth Farm for awhile and grown out to see her potential.  She is line bred on Ceasar's Villa Sharpie *S

This fello is going to Ill. to be a herd sire.  Sired by NC Promisedland S Zyvox *S, his dam is our lovely Oldesouth Galloway 2*M,*D, +DAR.  This is *B Oldesouth ZV Bandit *S.

This is Angel's Son who is on the web site For Sale.  He is a fancy boy, sired by Superb.

Sugar Moon Faith, a beautiful young doe flown in from Vermont last fall.  We will be clipping her up this weekend for next weekend's shows in Dade City, Fla. Do you think she is long enough?








Had to include a photo of Oldesouth Shell Foop.  He is a General son out of LTE Olde Butter.  He is long and our top PEE PEE boy.  A beautiful buck.  We have a doe he sired who is due to kid in April or late March.  Her dam is LTE Silene 1*M, *D,*DAR, LA 90 EEEE.  His daughter's name is Oldesouth Sunshine.  We showed her a bit as a Jr and she is bagging up, bred to The General.  A yearling doe we are excited about for our future first fresheners.





A couple of weeks age we attended the Alabama Cattleman's Association annual steak dinner, which was fabulous!  Nick at The Golden Ranch can really grill up an awesome steak!!  Anyway, I was going to sell off three beef heifers, but after the dinner and projections for the next several years, I think we will hang on to them for awhile.  Beef prices are rising, export to Japan is up and momma cows down 60% from several years ago due to drought, etc..

 Our newest heifer calves born in December.  Their sire was Brutus, a beef master and he produced 100% heifers.

Yes this is Beyonce and her calf Destiny, also a heifer.  Beyonce is a first freshener and sure has a beautiful fat calf.








Just had an Angus Bull delivered.  We are leasing him to breed our cows and see if we decide to purchase him.  Leasing  may be the way to go for our small herd.  I like the cattle to rotate pastures with my goats and sheep.  We have a lot of grass that would other wise have to be bush hogged.  The cows can convert it to beef.  Plus they fertilize the pastures and their parasites do not cross over to the sheep and goats.  We will have to take the mule and knock down the piles and rake them out to cover the entire pasture.  Goats go first, then cows, then sheep, then rest.  Goats do not like the cow pies, but sheep do not seem to mind.

With the wonderful weather, all that rye grass I planted last fall is going to town.  We may be able to get by on what round bales we have left for the cows.  We just moved the Billy Boys to another pasture and set the cows into the Billy pasture to eat that beautiful Rye grass.  Billy Boys did not seem to eat much of it and prefer the coastal hay.  Cows were happy to take over the mowing task.

We have a bunch of kids and some older brood does going to new homes this weekend.  Time goes to fast for me, but we do manage to get everything done.  Just hired a new fello to help with the milking and animal care.  The girls like David and that means a lot.

The photo to the right is our latest Livestock Guardian dog Maximus.  We picked him up last weekend in Mississippi.  We plan on breeding him to our Suzie who is the best LGD ever and getting some Anatolian/PYE crosses.  He is not well socialized to humans.  I want a dog I can work on or with and this boy was raised with goats and cows with little human contact.  He is coming along very well.  He is a beautiful pup.


This beautiful warm weather we have had has me wanting to dig in the garden.  With two years of goat and sheep poop composted, I think we will have a great garden this year.  I hope to have a group garden with my farm help and some locals so everyone can pitch in and benefit from the lush growing space I can provide with the compost and a handy solar electric fence to keep out sheep, goats, cows, horses, etc.  I do not need much for myself, but know several folks who would love to grow a garden to feed us all and more.  Will keep everyone posted.

January or April?

Our weather has been delightfully mild.  Sixty degrees, up to 70 degrees and mild nights in the 50s.  But with the warmer weather, we also get severe thunder storms and sometimes Tornados.  We have had damage north of us, but thankfully we have been safe.

We have a break in the kidding with 24 new kids on the ground by Superb, Zyvox and The General.  Our Diva UDiamond kidded triplets by Zyvox.  They are two does and a buck!  Two Diva does, we are thrilled.  One is black with white on her face and head, the other two are red with white patches.  They are spectacular. 

The doe to the left is an Angel doe and she is FOR SALE.  Angel is for sale and over seeing her daughter.  Check out our sales site at: 
http://www.oldesouth.citymax.com/sales.html
Oldesouth Amber Blue, an Alexa daughter by The General has freshened and is in the milk string.  She is out milking her mom.  Her triplets are sired by Oldesouth Sun Ray, a son of SG NC Promisedland SIA Sunra 3*M,4*D, +DAR.  His kids are long legged and really nice, two does and a buck.  Amber will earn her milking stars with out to much trouble.

Oldesouth Alabama Summer 1*M,*D,*DAR has kidded twin does by Zyvox, one is for sale, the other will be retained.

 Alabama Summer daughter, sired by Zyvox, Sold!

We will be offering several nice does for sale shortly, check our Goat Sales page often.  http://www.oldesouth.citymax.com/sales.html . 

We have 3 nice brood does For Sale.  Little Tot's Estate Chelone (Brat) 1*M,*D, +DAR is For Sale.  We have several of her daughters and need to make room for young stock.  She is trained to the milk stand and has won two Grand Champion Sr Doe awards and as well as Best of Breed.  She LAed at 86 in 2011.  Oldesouth Belladonna *2M,2*D is one of her daughters.  She is also the grandmother to Oldesouth Donna who has one JR leg towards her championship.  Chelone comes from Brush Creek lines. $525.

Also available is Little Tot's Estate Olde Angel (above right).  She is a small white doe with tan spots, sired by CH Buttin' Heads Red Branch Legond *S.  We have her two daughters, Oldesouth Blue Alexa 1*M,*D, +DAR and Oldesouth Babette 1*M,*D, +DAR.  Angel's dam is Little Tot's Estate Jasminum 1*M. $450.

Little Tot's Estate OldeButter is a tall doe, in the standard, sired by MCH/CH/PGCH SM3Pines JurEn's Sweel Foop +B, dam is LTE Jasminum 1*M.  She is the dam to our Oldesouth FLA Amber Blue 1*M,*D, DLT.  $400.  Butter has been exposed to Mr General.

Sired by NC Promisedland S Zyvox*S, his dam is Oldesouth Galloway 1*M,*D,+DAR. (left)  This buckling is stared!

What an eye catcher this young buck is!  He is sired by NC Promisedland S Zyvox *S, his dam is LTE Silene 1*M,*D, *DAR.  He is a stared buck!

This cute boy is sired by +*B Rosasharn MR General B +*D,+DAR.  The dam to this handsome fellow is Oldesouth FLA Amber Blue 1*M,*D, +DLT.  He is triple stared.

*B Oldesouth MRG Admiral *S,*DS





We are reducing our herd to keep more of our specacular young stock.  We have some nice brood does to build your own herd upon, which are proven producers.

Into a New Year

Another year has arrived all to quickly.  We reflect on 2011 and are Thankful for a great year.  We look forward to 2012 as an even better year, hopefully finishing

some Championships on a few goats along the way.

We will be heading into our second year on DHIR.  Our first year was very good, this year will be even better.  Now we sort of know what we are doing and get the paper work correct most of the time.  The General daughters are coming into their second freshening and we will see the milk come on!  Oldesouth Blue Alexa 1*M,*D, +DAR has a daughter Oldesouth Blue Amber who is looking fantastic.  She freshened with triplets, two does and a buck sired by Oldesouth SunRay, SG Sunra's son.  Her udder is fantastic and she is in the milking string.  Her first milk test will be next week.  Sun Ray is pictured below.

 

LTE Olde Angel, Alexa's and Babette's dam has finally freshened with two does and a buck.  She has had bucks for the last two years.  These gals are sired by *B Lost Valley PG Superb *S.  I expect them to milk even better then their sisters.

UDiamond will be kidding this month and I have purchased a web cam to keep an eye on her from work and on my phone.  She will be moving into the garage at the house this week so she can be monitored via WIFI and the web cam.  UDiamond is bred to Zyvox.  Sunra will be another doe to be closely monitored, she is due late January into Feburay.

UDiamond's son *B Oldesouth Cognac Diamond *S (photo above) is in the breeding pen with some yearlings.  He seems to have his act together and we will expect some kids in May.  This fall we will use Cognac on several of my older does.  We hope to use Oldesouth Lex Supreme as well, once his dam earns her milking stars, he will be *B, *S.  Lex has a great conformation, chest, depth of chest, a powerful buckling and beautiful topline.  He also has moonspots!  His dam Brush Creek Liz is milking surprizingly well, with perfect teat placement, large, easy to milk teats, she is a super nice doe at 7 years.  I even put up with her laying down after I take the milking inflations off.  She is getting easier to milk, not dragging me to the stand or playing ring around the milk stand.  I guess the animal crackers have convinced her I was not so bad...

UDiamond dry and pregnant pictured to left.  She is beautiful.

Brat is being milked again, she is being almost good.  If you know Brat, that is saying a lot.  She must have had a trama when young, because she still is crazy if strangers come around or something changes.  A lot of it is pure fear, she will tremble and cry like I was going to kill her.  Then she settles down and comes into the milking parlor, gets on the stand and exits quickly.

The cows have calved.  Christy and Beauty both calved heifers.

The photo to the right is Christy's Calf sired by Brutus, the Beef Master Bull we had.

The lovely calf to the left is Black Beauty's heifer calf by Brutus.

Beyonce and her calf Destiny to the right.  Beyonce always has something to say about everything and is a first time mom with a beautiful fat calf.

We have a lovely pair of Geese For Sale.  We have them priced at $75 for the pair.  They have been raised on free range and are out with the sheep on pasture.  Email for more information:  Oldesouth@charter.net

I took these photos at the farm one evening when fog was rolling in.  It made an interesting series of photos.  It was a bit spooky as the fog rolled in like waves in the ocean.

One more photo of the fog rolling onto Oldesouth Farm.

Chistmas is HERE!

Merry Christmas everyone!  We are slow roasting the Christmas Goose for the family feast.  Our home grown, free ranged Goose will be a great treat. 

Oldesouth Blue Alexa 1*M, *D,+DAR has just freshened with twins.  She is now in the milk string this weekend.  LH Sweet Caroline 1*M,*D,+DAR also freshened with twin bucklings.  One is blue eyed, very nice kids from these two does sired by *B Lost Valley PG Superb *S.  All these bucklings will be *B,*S..  Will get photos and post on our sales website shortly.   Link is listed below:
http://www.oldesouth.citymax.com/catalog/item/3033880/5754520.htm

Two of our cows, Black Beauty and Christy have calved.  Christy calved early the morning of the 23rd and have not had a chance to see if the calf is a bull or a heifer.  Beauty had a dark, chocolate heifer.  So far the bull I had sold has produced 100% heifers .  Wish my bucks were like that.  Need a bull calf to put in the freezer as a steer.

The weather has been rainy, but the temperatures mild.  We are still a bit under normal rain fall for December at 3.85 inches, which is 0.87 an inch below average.  I think we will go over by the end of the month.  Hopefully not by much.  I prefer dry weather.  I still remember the winter of 2009 with a foot of rain in december.  It sucked beyond words! 

The rye grass is growing well, but has a ways to go to be considered grazing.

We will be at the end of another year all to soon.  Again we are Thankful for the good folks we have met and the end of our first year on DHIR.  Out of 20 does who started, 16 have made their stars this year, 14 in all three registries ADGA, AGS, and NDGA.  One doe was a Nubian only registered with ADGA & Annie Oakley made her star through her butter fat in ADGA.

We have a Christmas Eve baby, just one, LTE Chelone "Brat" 1*M,*D,+DAR has kidded a lovely doe by *B Lost Valley PG Superb *S.  Jet black like her mom, with a white star on her head.  Perfict topline, what a little darling.  May have to name her Oldesouth Christmas Cheer.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Oldesouth Girls are doing Great in the Milk Pail!

Received the news today of six more does earning their milking stars with AGS, ADGA and NDGA!  We have our first triple + buck as well! (General photo below) We may be the only triple + buck in the Nigerian History!! We are researching it and want to know if anyone knows of another triple + buck.  NDGA requires the bucks to be 23 inches or less.  The General is a bit under 22 1/2 inches, according to his LA 2011 appraisal.

Our star does are Oldesouth Babette 1*M, *D, +DAR (sister to Oldesouth Blue Alexa 1*M,*D,+DAR), Oldesouth Blue Reba 1*M,*D,+DAR, Oldesouth Alabama Summer 1*M,*D, *DAR, Oldesouth Galloway 1*M,*D, +DAR, Rosasharn GX UDiamond 3*M, 4*D, +DAR, and LTE Silene 1*M, *D,*DAR. 


+*B Rosasharn MR General B +*S,+DAR  has qualified for his + through his daughters on DHIR milk test in all three registries.  (photo above) .

SG NC Promisedland SIA SunRa has just been dried off along with Oldesouth Cocoa Delight and Oldesouth Belladonna.  They will have their final numbers on lactations early next month and the awards earned.

We are accepting reservations for 2012 Kids.  Our Breeding schedule is at:  http://www.oldesouth.citymax.com/breedingschedule.html

Currently Oldesouth Silver Princess, Brush Creek Liz and Promisedland BHP Scandal are on DHIR until everyone freshens again.  Some will freshen the end of December and most will freshen in January.  Next year everyone will be dried up in November and we will be taking a break until February.

We have finally scheduled our Veterinarian to come out and pull blood for our annual CAE & John's testing.  Our schedule and our Vet's schedule have been so crazy.  But he is coming out December 12th for the blood draw and vaccinates my dogs & barn cat.  Philip and his brother Evan will help with catching and holding while Dr Doug draws.  I am the paper work queen and know who everyone is.

We all at Oldesouth Farm wish each and everyone a wonderful Holiday Season, Merry Christmas, and A HAPPY NEW YEAR!