Dog Days of August are Almost OVER!

August has been HOT!  But then we had several days with low humidity and we so enjoyed the pleasant days.  But now back to the usual hot and muggy.
We lost our hay to the rain and humidity.  It molded in the field and we left it there, not worth paying help to bale up rotten hay.  We need to rethink the hay situation and have decided to sell the baler and purchase hay, since we have ended up purchasing hay the two years we have had the baler anyway.

We have our first load of hay, a semi trailer. Some 450 square bales of Coastal Hay. This is hay for the milkers and my goats. We will get some large bales for the cattle and sheep. Goats waste large bales because they jump on them, urinate and defecate all over it and then will not eat it. Sheep do not do this, which is good.

 Trailer full of hay.

 

Hay stacked in the barn.









We have sold our Bull Brutus, a Beef Master to buy hay.  We have 3 young heifers and 3 bred cows by him.  We do not need to feed him through the winter and now all the cows and young heifers are pastured together to save on labor with the automatic watering system in the pasture.  We will purchase another bull next year.  I personally want a pure Angus Bull.



Brutus pictured to the right.





We look forward to fall coming and the weather cooling down.  We have several does who will be kidding this fall and several more have come into season.  Fall is a noisy time for goats, lots of hooting and hollering, snorting and grunting.  The bucks are pretty stinky already.  The urine perfume can make your eyes water if one gets to close to them.  The girls think the boys are the rage in their odoriferous splendor...

Oldesouth Shell Foop, one of the Nigerian Bucks sired by The General.  He is white, but the rut of fall has him showing the urine stains of a buck.  He is mighty stinky.

Oldesouth Shell Foop in his glory of buck nasty mess.  The yellow staining is urine...  Yeah, the bucks spray urine all over their face and front.  He even has urine stains on his back.



We have two more does who will be dried up next month and one the end of August.  They have finished their 305 day lactation and have earned their milking stars.  Ariel my Nubian looks like she will hit the 2000 pound mark, which is neat.  That is 250 gallons of milk!  Ariel is 6 years old and I hope to AI her with semen from SGCH +*B Lakeshore Farms Star Status LA 91 EEE.  Photo below:






I bought his semen a couple of winters ago and now he is an elite sire and deceased!  He was the 2010 ADGA National Premier Nubain Sire!  It would be so cool to get a doe by this buck.  We shall see how our AI skills play out...  I have two other sires in the tank for Ariel down the road.  I am not into Nubians, but have had Ariel for many years and she has fed many a bottle baby goat and lamb, not to mention our family.  She is so cute getting on the milk stand, having to duck her head to get into the short, Nigerian stanchion.  She is a family member like one of our dogs.  She LAed 83, needing a fore udder and more rear udder.  She is mostly teats, but has a nice body, topline, and great feet.

My Quarter Horse Gelding Joe, he is 5 years old.  A beautiful horse, 16 hands and has not missed any meals.

We are offering my Quarter Horse Joe For Sale.  He is pure Quarter Horse, but not registered.  He is from a long line of Cattle Cutting Horses.  He is broke, 5 years old, 16 hands and about 1200 pounds.  He is a big boy.  Loads easy, stands quietly for the blacksmith to trim hooves and easy going.  He will trail ride and do what ever you ask of him.  $1500.



We also had a wind storm the middle of August which brought down a tree in the Pecan Orchard.  The Orchard is the ram pen and we counted and checked the rams to make sure they were all OK.  Thankfully no one was hurt or under the tree.  We are thankful the tree did not fall on the fence either.  Usually any branch or tree that falls, seems to end up on the fence.

 Pecan tree uprooted.

 Rams are OK and accounted for.

Trump is OK too.  He is pictured above.

September is upon us and we have just received our License to sell raw Goat Milk and Chevre Goat Cheese for animal usage.  We are milking 10 does now with several to be dried up and several more freshening for fall.  We will have Goat Milk and Cheese for the fall and winter.  We will sell off the farm by appointment for pick up.  Our number is:  334-327-9252.  We will do some delivery, depending on the quantity purchased locally.  We appreciate folks keeping their appointments out of courtesy to us and our busy schedule.  No shows will be removed from our customer list.

We will also take reservations for Lambs.  We will have several Icelandic and Shetland lambs for slaughter this fall.  The sheep did well over the summer in spite of the heat.

Steam Bath Anyone?

Humidity is 100%, temperature 99, heat index off the chart!  Welcome to Alabama!  The entire country is hot, with record breaking temps everywhere.  So I guess we can not complain because we get this every year.  It has rained almost daily, the last month and it is getting annoying.



We are trying to harvest hay and need 3 dry days to cut, dry and get it baled.  We have our window and cut a couple of fields yesterday and hopefully will bale it Thursday evening.  Hopefully Mr Paul will adjust the baler will make nice 50 pound bales and not 100 pound like last year!

We have dried off three of our does on DHIR who have earned their milking stars in ADGA, AGS, and NDGA.  The three does are, Oldesouth Blue Alexa, LTE Chelone (our favorite Brat), and Lil Hill Farm Sweet Caroline.  They are in the Honey Moon pen with *B Lost Valley PG Superb *S for next years kid crop and milking.

Oldesouth Blue Alexa *D, (*M, DAR+ pending)

Brat was promised she would not be milked again after getting her star.  So it will be up to her if she wants to come into the DIVA pen and be milked next year.  The milkers are fed twice a day, special, yummy feed and treated like the DIVA's they are.  Most of the girls hate leaving to go into the dry girl's pen, which is also the DIET and Drying off pen.  The extra weight put on to get the higher production, quickly comes off to get the girls ready for the breeding season.  There is lots of Protest from the FAT GIRL pen.

Oldesouth Farm was show cased on a TV show.  Time Well Spent is a TV show on AgTV, put on by the Alabama Coop.  Tim Allen came out to film our goats and sheep.  It was fun and hopefully we will talk Tim into coming back for fall Sheep Shearing of the Icelandics.  The link to watch the program is:  http://vimeo.com/26274829 .

We are taking reservations for 2012 kids, see our Breeding Schedule at:  http://www.oldesouth.citymax.com/breedingschedule.html

We will also have some fall kiddings.  We have had several does exposed to *B Lost Valley PG Superb *S.  Several of these does are older Brush Creek Does.  I will have their info shortly.  Because they were pasture bred, it is difficult to predict kidding dates.  I usually wait for kids to hit the ground before listing.  I will get a preliminary sheet with does and their pedigrees for everyone's consideration.  I would like to put these does on DHIR but some are 7 to 9 years old.  If a doe is not milked to their potential when young, sometimes they do not reach their potential.  Thier bodied produce what is needed, they kick off the kids and go on with drying off. We will see how they freshen.

The photo to the right is Sage.

Brush Creek Charlies Angel is a lovely older doe.  Her topline and build is ideal, photo below. 

Will be drying off two more does next after the next milk test, Oldesouth Blue Annalynn and Oldesouth FLA Amber Blue.  Both have made their stars, but I wanted them to milk a few more pounds of milk for good measure.  That will be 5 does stared so far.  My one Nubian Ariel is close to 2000 pounds of milk.  I want to take her to the full 305 days to see if we can get there.

Got to go...