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.