David Robb and Lila Bennett raised about 300 turkeys this season but, income aside, they hate to see the flock go.
“Chickens are indifferent,” Robb said. But turkeys? “They love people. It’s actually turned Thanksgiving into kind of a sad holiday.”
Turkeys are just one of many species raised at Tangletown Farm. It’s taken creativity for Robb and Bennett to grow their operation from backyard henhouse to full-fledged meat farm in under a decade. Now, the farmers are trying to figure out how to strike a balance: not too big, not too small.
“There are a bunch of us who are trying to find out what mid-size is and how to make it viable,” Robb said. “I think all of us really are trying to find a formula.”
Situated on 188 acres in West Glover, the farm is fiercely dedicated to raising high quality, free-range meat, the owners say. A testament to their pasture-based philosophy is the barn, which, aside from a small area for the young cows in winter, and space for rabbit housing, serves mainly as a storage area and space for bikes and scooters for the family’s three children.
Tangletown Farm first set roots in Middlesex, where the two Central Vermont natives lived. Robb was a carpenter and Bennett a teacher. Knowing they wanted the option to home school their children, the couple started brainstorming about ways to leave their day jobs.
The family had some experience in backyard farming. Bennett had a long history caring for horses, and the family kept laying hens. They held strong views on local food production, and wanted to put their philosophy into practice.
Bennett and Robb pre-sold CSA memberships and used their income tax refunds to invest in their first livestock and reserved a spot at the Montpelier farmers’ market. Limited by the two acres around their Middlesex home, they leased land where they could find and afford it. They found temporary pastures for their herd, flock, and passel of pigs on five pieces of land from Williston to Craftsbury.
But, like many small farmers, they were limited by the challenge of processing the meat. Unless farmers are able to bring their chickens to a USDA facility to be processed under the watchful gaze of an inspector, they are restricted to selling no more than 1,000 birds a year. Robb and Bennett wanted to find a more convenient way of processing their meat, but their patchwork quilt of leased farmland made it difficult to find a permanent solution.
“We knew we weren’t staying so we couldn’t build a facility,” Robb said.
The initiative, unveiled in 2008, was part of the state’s effort to find an innovative solution to Vermont’s slaughterhouse scarcity. If getting chickens from the farm to a state-approved processing facility was the trouble, then why not bring the slaughterhouse to the farm?
The unit hit the road in 2009, and, operated by Spring Hill Poultry Processing in Morrisville, served Vermont’s farms for three poultry seasons before the state decided to sell the facility.
Bennett and Robb bought the white trailer, tricked out with everything from kill cones to plucker to refrigeration units.
With the purchase of the mobile unit, business started changing for the farm. They became more poultry based — they now sell about 10,000 chickens a year — and they have more options when it comes to sales. Every chicken comes out with the Vermont Department of Agriculture stamp of approval, which allows the farm to sell in grocery stores and to sell chickens in parts.
At first, Bennett and Robb hoped to keep the unit mobile, perhaps setting up in public places like fairgrounds. But between the trailer’s physical bulk and the requirements of operating it properly, such as water supply and drainage standards, it proved too cumbersome to continue to be mobile, they said.
“I don’t think customers can understand how big it is and how hard it is to move around,” said Bennett, reflecting on her first encounter with the unit well before they owned it. Unable to fit the unit on their Middlesex farm, they ended up processing the birds with the slaughterhouse parked on the side of the road.
When Robb and Bennett bought their property in West Glover in late 2012, they brought the slaughterhouse with them. Today, it sits out behind the old cow barn, and they encourage area farmers to bring their chickens to be processed.
Robb recognizes that for many small farmers, the need to comply with state regulations may seem almost like a barrier to their business. But, he said he has gained insights from his experience in the field.
“The longer we’ve been doing it, the more I’ve educated myself,” Robb said. “I understand where the regulations come from and I don’t have a problem with them.”
However, processing remains an expensive obstacle for many farmers. Bennett and Robb say the best way to help small farmers is to open more slaughterhouses to make it easier for farmers to meet state standards.
On a table outside the barn stacked with neatly bagged turkeys, Bennett and Robb also placed a plate of cookies and a Sierra Nevada six-pack. It’s part of a tradition, marking the end of several months of turkey-rearing, as well as the end of the 2014 poultry season. Even though poultry work slows down, the onset of winter marks the beginning of a different type of work: keeping up-to-date with federal and state paperwork.
“It’s much more than just the slaughtering,” Robb said.
