Shady Lane Farm is our home and has been the Abney Family home for
five generations. In March, 1867, Capt. Zachariah Abney
established himself in Prattville where he practiced law and took
up farming. He married Alexandra Victoria Doster. They had four
children who survived childhood. Zachariah Abney, Jr. was one of
those four. He married Marian Frances Bowen. These are Sam’s
grandparents. Capt. Abney served Autauga County as Register in
Chancery from 1883 until his death. Many long term
Prattville
attorneys can still trace the beginning of their careers back to
reading law under Attorney Zachariah Abney. According to family
tradition, Zach and his twin brother Sam, were the first set of
twins to graduate from the University of Alabama. All the present
Abney generation are loyal
Auburn
Alumni and fans. We currently live in the original house that has
been moved to its present location about ½ mile from where it was
built. It is a continual work of love.
Shady Lane Farm Road
Shady Lane Farm is located just off Doster Road in Prattville,
Alabama. We are about 8 miles north of Alabama’s capital in
Montgomery. Two main highways pass within 1 mile of our home.
Highways 82 and 31. Interstate 65 is just about 5 miles east of
our farm.
Daniel Pratt moved to Autauga County in the fall of 1833. He
purchased a large tract of swampy land, ditched and drained
it, and prepared the foundation for the first building to
begin the town that now bears his name, Prattville. The town
was built, styled after a New England village. Pratt
continuously improved his gin and became the largest gin
manufacturer in the world. Prattville and Autauga County are
among the fastest growing areas in the state. It has come a
long way from being “The Birthplace of Industry in Alabama”.
Sam and I are proud to be a part of this progressive town.
Sam retired from
sales in 2002. He has been able to live his dream of raising
goats fulltime. He is past president of the Meat Goat and
Sheep Commodity affiliated with ALFA for the state of Alabama.
He is Chairman of the Autauga County Farmer's Federation Meat
Goat and Sheep Commodity and I am Vice Chairman. We work on
issues involving goats and sheep within the state. One of our
favorite activities is homecoming at Auburn University. The
commodities of Alabama set up at the Big Red Barn and people
attending the game get to taste the home grown commodities. We
serve goat meat and it is always well received. This past
February we attended the Farm Bureau national meeting in
Washington D. C. It was an eye opener to hear of the experiences
people from across the nation have concerning goats and sheep.
Many of them have the same problems we have in Alabama. They also
are experiencing growing pains but pains that are met with
excitement just as we are.
Sam and I have a
part time business managing Shady Hill Mobile Home Park next to
Abney Estates. This, along with raising goats, chickens,
peacocks, guineas, a pot bellied pig and a pet turkey named
Gertrude keep us busy. There is always something new everyday
that makes us look forward to getting out of bed. We love to
travel, at least I do. We take a lot of trips and almost always
end up at someone's goat farm along the way. Last summer we went
to Yellowstone National Park and Glacier National Park. If you
guessed that we saw goats you would be right. We spent a good
part of an afternoon looking at the mountain goats in Glacier and
continue to talk about how they fascinated us.
Day
Lillies at Shady Lane Farm
For 38 years I
taught first grade. 34 of those years was at my Alma Mater,
Billingsley School. We support the school by placing an ad
for goats and promotion of the goat industry in the football
program. While I was teaching Sam would bring the goats to
school and teach a mini lesson on goat farming. I retired in
2008. The goat visits now include trips to Georgia where
Maria teaches at Locust Grove Elementary which is also the
school Will and Madyson attend. Will loves showing off his
showmanship ability and Madyson just loves the goats period.
We promote the
goat industry by sponsoring a youth Boer Goat Show the first
Friday in February. The Autauga Agribition is in conjunction with
the Heifer/Steer program for youth. The show continues to grow
each year. This past year's show had 41 youth participating and
169 goats. Four states were represented. We started with just a
doe show but now we have wethers, commercial does, a dairy goat
show, showmanship, goat parade, educational displays, photo
contest, scrapbook contest, and the open registered percentage,
fullblood does and bucks. All of this is great but the activity
that really draws a crowd is the goat and child costume parade.
We even have people who are driving down the road to read
the marquee and stop to see what a goat show is all about.
Sam and I used to sponsor the ABGA Boer Goat Show in March at
Garrett Coliseum named the Southeastern Livestock Expo Boer
Classic. Because this show was on a Thursday we ran into problems
with attendance after a few years. However we are still working
toward getting this show on a weekend. The rodeo was going on so
lots of people came by to see what goats were all about. That
usually got new customers for goats and goat meat.
Sam and I married in 1982, blending two families for a total of 5
children. They were active in 4-H, showing steers, heifers and
horses along with many other projects. Two of our children and
their families help us show goats. The youngest of our children,
Zach and Maria raised goats as youngsters and still enjoy this
today. Zach is married to the former Robin Roberts. They have a
new home in Tallapoosa, Ga. Zach works in Cedartown, Ga. for
Wal-Mart and Robin works for Harbin Clinic in Rome, Ga. They have
3 daughters. Samantha, who is the oldest, who in addition to
being pretty good at showing goats plays basketball and softball.
She has been an All Star every year since she started playing.
She is on varsity now and swings a mean bat with a batting average
of 401. Allison is two and we have a very new addition to the
family. Anna Claire was born on September 15, 2009. Maria is
married to James Collett formerly from Prattville. They have two
children, Will and Madyson. James works for Lithonia Lighting in
computer programming. Maria teaches first grade at Locust Grove
Elementary. Their home is in McDonough, Ga. Will is 10 and has
been showing goats since he was 2. Madyson had her debut at the
2005 Autauga Agribition as she and her goat dressed as Thumbelina
in the Goat Parade. She is now 5 years old and LOVES the
goats. Both of them have their own herds of goats. They
participate in all the activities in local, state and the ABGA
national shows. They like it ALL. If Madyson is missing we can
find her in the goat's pen. The other 3 children Lynn and her
husband Greg, Lina and Lori all live in or around Rome, Ga. They
teach, coach and work as a dental assistant. Two of our
grandchildren, Lauren and Lance have shown goats. Cheerleading
and football have taken them away from goats for a while. They
other 3, Mallory, Carter and Dawson are involved in sports also.
All of them show horses.
Sam's first memories of goats was at the young and impressive age
of six. A white doe on the family farm kidded in a ditch about
100 yards in front of the house. He was so excited and impressed
by the two kids, he has seldom been without goats since. When we
married in 1982 Sam provided animals for the live nativity at the
First Baptist Church of Prattville. Two of those animals were
Nubian does named Dolly Parton, for obvious reasons, and Abigail.
While we were on our honeymoon, Dolly Parton gave birth to twin
bucks who were named Honeymoon and Chester. This began my love
affair with goats. From those two does our herd grew and
increased to about 150 fullblood and cross bred Nubian goats.
In 1998 Sam
heard about large boned, meaty goats from South Africa called
Boers. We bought our first fullblood Boer does from our good
friends, Jimmy and DuWayne Middlebrooks of J & D Boer Goats.
Jimmy told us about the Ryals from Tylertown, Ms. We made an
appointment to visit, hopefully to purchase a buck. On the
trip down, as fate would have it, the Ryals stopped at the
Mississippi Welcome Center coming home from the Lebanon, Tn.
goat show. We walked over to the trailer to check out the
goats. The trailer just so happened to belong to Rocking R
Boer Goats. We followed them to Tylertown and spent half a
day in goat heaven. I saw Magnum and was hooked forever. I
had to have my picture made with him. It was like celebrity
day in Hollywood. Bill and Blake served us iced tea and while
we sipped tea we picked their brains about Boer Goats. We
realized how little we knew and how much we had to learn.
Since that day our friendship has grown. We feel fortunate to
have the family as our mentors and friends. That day we
purchased a son of Top Brass.
That day also
proved to be a blessing because we met Kirk and Colleen Rowe
who have become fast friends and our co-consigners in our
production sale. They were in Tylertown looking to purchase
goats too. The first friends we made at goat shows were
Charles and Linda Merrell and their daughters Jennifer and
Becky. We communicate daily with Linda who most goat people
affectionately refer to as Dr. Linda. Her advice is always
sound and usually accurate for doctoring goats AND people.
They also are affiliated with our production sale.
(Click on picture for more
info)
(Click on picture for more
info)
We purchase "Right on
Target" in partnership with good friends Jeff and Melissa Latham
at the Ryals' dispersal sale. We bought out their half and became
partners with Bill, Blake and Niki Ryals of Rocking R Boers from
Tylertown, Ms. Target was a beautiful animal that as Madyson
would say, brought us fame and good fortune. He placed as Senior
Reserve Grand Champion Buck at the 2008 ABGA nationals in Tulsa,
Ok. This was our greatest achievement in the goat world. Target
died this past July but we are fortunate to still have semen on
him. He has produced some really great kids and was ennobled
before passing away.
We do flushes in the fall and spring at Shady Lane Farm and in
Tylertown. Natural breedings are always available as are semen
straws on our bucks Bigun, Smokin' Gun and Target. People are
welcome and encouraged to visit us. Sam and I are usually 'round
about, either in the barn or nearby. Maria calls and says " Are
you digging in the dirt or playing with the goats?"
We sponsor our grandchildren and several other youth in their goat
projects. Goats indeed keep us busy. Hopefully you are enjoying
your goats as much as we do. Come on down to Prattville. We'll
sit awhile, walk a while, talk a lot and introduce you to true
Southern hospitality, Prattville style.
