Shady Lane Farm
Est. 1867

776 Shady Lane Farm Road
Prattville, Alabama 36067
samlauburn@hughes.net
334-365-5146


Mark your calendars for the OCTOBER 24th!! The Southern Source Sale in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. 

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Consignors

Shady Lane Farm
Sam and Mary Lou Abney
www.shadylnfarm.com
samlauburn@hughes.net
Jerico Farms
Kirk and Colleen Rowe
www.jericofarms.com
krowe07@att.com

Guest Consignors

Veal Farms
Troy and Kim Veal
www.vealfarms.com
vealfarms@gmail.com
Rocking R Boer Goats
Bill, Niki, Blake & Jaimee Ryals
www.rockingrboers.com
ryalsb@telepak.net
 Boer Trax Acres
Jeff and Kim Dobbins
www.boertrax.net
boertrax@aol.com  
Capatap Boers
Tommy & Joyce Cooley
 
Garrett's Boer Goats
John & Sandra Garrett
garrett1964@hughes.net
Little River Boers
David & Kim Eubanks
 
Four H Farm
Wade & Dan Hussey

 
Jason Dennis Boer Goats
Jason and Cheri Dennis

 
Riverbluff Farm
Glen & Nancy Casada
riverblufffarm.com
gtcasada@aol.com

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 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.

Click Here to Learn More About Prattville, AL

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 here for more information and larger view
(Click on picture for more info)

Click here for more information and larger view
(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.


 Sam and Mary Lou Abney


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