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...
