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Two burros from California will be used to fend off
Jeff Adams feeds hogs while making his morning rounds at Walnut Hill Farm in Stafford, which he runs with his wife, Ginny, and son, Benjamin.
Jeff Adams (foreground) begins processing chickens while Byron Spicer looks on. Birds are butchered, scalded, put in a spinner that removes feathers, and then eviscerated.
Ginny Adams unpacks chicks at Walnut Hill Farm. The chickens are raised free-range, without antibiotics, growth hormones or steroids. They are slaughtered at about 10 weeks of age and sold to the public.
After the mobile henhouse is moved to a new location, Ginny Adams of Walnut Hill Farm opens the ramp and lets out the laying hens. |
By CATHY DYSON
Moments after sunrise on a recent misty morning, the hills around Hartwood are alive with the sound of animals.
Chickens cluck in almost singsong fashion as their henhouse is rolled to a different spot in the pasture.
Jeff and Ginny Adams, owners of Walnut Hill Farm, move the pen--and the portable fence around it--every week. They want to capitalize on the piles of poop the chickens leave behind and spread that wealth throughout the fields.
The nitrogen-rich waste is the only fertilizer the Adamses use. It helps the grass grow, which in turn supplies food for grazing oxen, beef cattle and sheep.
And speaking of sheep, they're bleating in earnest at the sight of human activity. The leaders of the flock amble down one hill and up another in an effort to snatch a few pellets of chicken feed.
They seem to think the grass is greener where the chickens are, so they graze near the hens until the portable fence is ready to go up again--and the sheep are shooed away.
On the other side of the farm, two wild burros bray and dozens of pigs fill the air with their impatient squeals. They are all waiting for the morning meal, which can't come soon enough.
The scenery around the farm seems like a page from another place and time, and that's by design.
'I KNOW THEIR STORY'
The Adamses are raising heritage livestock--hearty breeds that have been in America for centuries and are known for their flavorful meat. The husband and wife also are using methods that go back almost as far.
Everything they sell at local markets is raised on their land without chemicals, growth hormones or antibiotics.
They sell freshly killed whole chickens for $3 a pound, and cuts of pork, beef and lamb that have been processed and frozen by a commercial butcher. Those cuts range from $6.25 a pound for maple sausage to $20.95 a pound for T-bone steak.
"We're not a Walmart," Ginny said. "We don't have Walmart prices."
But they do offer flavor--and their guarantee that the animals lived in a natural environment and weren't forced to gain weight faster than their bodies were meant to absorb it.
For instance, those chickens sold on Saturdays in Warrenton and Manassas, and at the farm on Kellogg Mill Road?
They were processed the Friday before by Jeff.
Should a customer ask, he can tell what time the birds were killed--within an hour or two. He can give details of their lives, from the time they left a Pennsylvania farm after hatching, to the four weeks they stayed in his brooder house until they grew feathers.
He can describe the fenced-in pen where the birds scratched and pecked until they reached about 5 pounds at the age of 10 weeks.
And he can give as many details as desired about the process used to slaughter and scald them and pull off their feathers.
"I know their story," he said.
ALMOST SELF-SUFFICIENT
For almost 30 years, the Adamses have lived on Kellogg Mill Road in southern Stafford. In 2001 they jumped at the chance to buy more land, four doors down.
"You've heard of the expression '40 acres and a mule'?" Jeff asked. "Well, that's almost me."
Jeff, who has a degree in biology, was teaching school when the family first moved to the farm, but these days he's trying to derive his sole income from the place.
Ginny still works as an office manager in Manassas, and their son, Benjamin, who sells at farmers markets on weekends, is a pipe layer.
"We're headed toward self-sufficiency," Ginny said. "We're not there yet."
Initially, the Adamses read about raising llamas or growing grapes as they decided what to do with the land.
Then they saw a display of Hog Island sheep at the Orange County Fair, and it changed their lives. The Adamses liked the fact that the sheep, which can live on grass and withstand diseases better than commercial breeds, had been in Virginia since the 1680s.
They bought a pair, and, as Jeff described it, "one thing led to another and then another" until the Adamses became the largest breeders of Hog Island sheep in the world.
"It's a labor of love to keep the breed going," said Ginny, adding that they don't eat many purebreds unless the animals can't breed. "And quite honestly, they're one of the tastiest sheep I've ever had."
'THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY'
The process of "one thing led to another" happens a lot around Walnut Hill.
When the Adamses realized how much they liked heritage sheep, they started looking at other ancient breeds.
They added Tamworth pigs, porkers that don't produce "the other white meat," but rather chops and loins that are red like beef.
They got milking Devon cows, which came to America with the Pilgrims. Ginny feels a special connection to them because her ancestors, like theirs, arrived on the Mayflower.
As they've sold their products at farmers markets in Warrenton and Northern Virginia, they've found customers who like the idea of American breeds raised locally, in pastures or dirt pens, not on the concrete floors of institutional farms.
"I'm picky about what I eat and even more so about what my children eat," said Amber Kiffney, a Warrenton mother who buys sausage and eggs, kielbasa and chickens from the Adamses. "We appreciate farmers who are willing to forgo so-called modern farming techniques and do it the old-fashioned way."
Arthur Speyer, who lives in the Aquia area of the county, found the farm by accident one day. He likes the idea of eating food raised in Stafford, especially pork kabobs.
"They have a great deep, rich flavor, very unlike the bland pork you get from supermarkets," he said.
Having fresh local chickens is pretty cool, too. He likes telling his children that a chicken that was running around a Stafford farm one day was on his grill the next.
"Before that, I think they thought chicken came from aisle six at Giant," he said.
'RARER THAN A PANDA'
The Adamses don't raise any of the feed they give their livestock, except grass. They'd like to be able to fertilize more fields, and Jeff is thinking about enough hens to fill six more houses.
He currently slaughters 50 chickens a week and has no trouble selling them. In fact, people who aren't at the markets when they open usually don't get one, he said, and he's thinking about doubling the number he raises.
He and Ginny, who are 55 and 54, have other plans, too. Once the wild burros she bought at auction settle down--and allow humans to touch them--they'll become guardians to the herd animals, who've been mauled from time to time by neighborhood dogs.
They'll continue to raise heritage breeds and probably look for more. They like raising unusual animals that aren't, as Jeff says, a dime a dozen.
"They're rarer than a Panda bear," Ginny says.
Cathy Dyson: 540/374-5425
Email: cdyson@freelancestar.com
BEEF: 40, some of which are kept on rented land in Goldvein
CHICKENS: 300 to 1,000 at any given time. Jeff processes about 50 every Friday. WHAT ELSE? One goat, one rabbit, two burros, two oxen--which Jeff hopes to use instead of tractors one day--and three ducks.
