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Jim and Adele Hayes devised
an intricate grazing system that allows a succession of ruminants
to move through their pastures. |
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Jim
and Adele Hayes
Sap Bush Hollow Farm
Warnerville, New York
Updated in 2005
Summary of Operation
Diversified, pasture-based livestock operation on 160 owned and
30 rented acres
On-farm retail sales, farmers market
Problem Addressed
Focus on production instead of marketing. Jim and Adele Hayes
have long known grass-based farming can be a practical, environmentally
sound and profitable approach to raising animals. However, when
Adele added her brand of creative direct marketing, their livestock
operation truly took off.
Background
For most of the Hayes’ 25 years at Sap Bush Hollow, Jim and
Adele worked full time off the farm: Jim as a professor of animal
science and Adele as a county director of economic development and
planning. Both grew up on farms, and they raised sheep from the
start. Money-wise, however, Sap Bush Hollow was a losing proposition
until 1996, when Adele reduced her job to part time.
“I felt we could bring our farm to the point where it could
support our family,” she explains. Her efforts paid off. In
2000, Adele went full time on the farm; in 2001 Jim joined her full
time; and their daughter Shannon and son-in-law Bob began working
part time. Today, the farm supports 1H families.
Direct marketing drives the operation. Sap Bush sells to about 400
consumers — including individuals, restaurants and stores
— in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont.
“Marketing is the hardest, most time-consuming activity on
this farm,” Adele stresses. “It’s not physically
hard, but it is mentally challenging.”
By combining an ecological approach, conscientious animal husbandry
and tenacious marketing, Sap Bush Hollow Farm has developed into
an operation the family finds increasingly personally fulfilling.
It also draws admiration from customers, neighbors and other farmers.
“People stop along the road and just look at our place,”
Adele Hayes says. “They notice that the grass is so green,
that the animals are out grazing. The look of the place is one of
beauty — in the eye and in the mind.”
Focal Point of Operation
— Grass-based livestock production and marketing
Over the years, the Hayeses moved from one commodity
— sheep — to a diversified operation that now includes
chickens (broilers and layers), turkeys, geese, cattle, pigs and
sheep. It’s a change they believe has strengthened the operation,
adding both biological diversity and marketing options.
The poultry operation is the cornerstone of the marketing program.
“They have the lowest return per hour of labor, but when new
customers come, they’re coming for a high-quality chicken.
When they’re here, they realize we have all the other meat,”
Adele says.
Adele and Shannon sell most of the meat from the farm kitchen, eliminating
distribution costs. They use a website, email, newsletters, postcards
and even phone calls to inform customers of sale days and products
available. Shannon and Bob also sell meat at the Pakatakan Farmers
Market in nearby Margaretville.
To cover the customers coming to the farm, they began purchasing
liability insurance in 1998. They post a sign by the end of the
driveway and use a large, flat lawn for customer parking. The farm
sits about 100 yards off the road and is not visible from the main
thoroughfare, but customers rarely have trouble finding it. “We’re
not looking for drive-by traffic,” Adele says. “Almost
all our customers are invited to the farm, so they receive instructions
on how to get here.”
The Hayeses raise all their animals using management intensive grazing
strategies that allow them to keep their farm equipment needs —and
their farm debt — low. During the grazing season, they rotate
ruminants through a series of paddocks to both provide high-quality
forage and to allow the pasture to re-grow before animals return
to graze.
Their rotations are planned to emphasize each species’ nutritional
needs. For example, they graze lambs on their best pasture in the
spring, but by summer’s end, move fattening cattle ahead of
dry ewes.
Careful attention to pasture conditions makes the system work. “We
have a ‘sacrifice’ pasture near the barn that’s
well fenced so it’s easy to maintain the animals there,”
Adele says. “We allow that to get destroyed if we need to,”
a better option than damaging prime pasture through overgrazing.
The Hayeses use all of the 160 acres they own solely for rotational
grazing. They typically take a cut of hay off the 30 rented acres
before grazing it as well. Sap Bush Hollow purchases grain and the
bulk of their winter feed. Says Jim: “We’ve found that
we make more money not having any machinery.”
The Hayeses breed their Dorset-cross ewe flock to synchronize lambing
with pasture growth. The ewes typically produce between 150 and
160 lambs in mid-May. Lambs generally are born outside. The Hayeses
do very little supplemental feeding, relying on their well-managed
pastures for the bulk of the ewes’ and the lambs’ nutritional
needs.
The Hayeses aim for a moderately sized carcass, both so that they
can finish their animals on grass and for marketing purposes. “When
a customer wants to purchase a lamb, we’ve found that between
$100 and $125 dollars is the breaking point,” Adele says.
“If the lamb gets much bigger, they’d rather buy the
parts.”
Sap Bush Hollow Farm begins slaughtering lambs in late September,
with the last group of animals coming off pasture and going to the
slaughterhouse around the end of the year. They also raise 16-20
steers and about 60 pigs each year, which they sell both in bulk
(a side or split half) and as retail cuts.
They use two federally inspected slaughterhouses, one at the State
University of New York (SUNY) at Cobleskill, and the other about
40 miles away. For the Hayeses, like many other small meat producers
in the Northeast, the decreasing number of slaughterhouses is a
problem.
“Our volume of meat is pretty far beyond what
one local slaughter house can handle,” Adele says. “We
have to book ahead.”
Sap Bush raises about 2,000 pre-ordered broilers. They allow the
birds to feed on fresh pasture and insects, as well as chicken feed.
They house the birds in a portable pen, which they move to a new
piece of pasture each day. Sap Bush Hollow developed its own feed
blend for birds that has a higher vitamin package and lower energy
than commercial broiler rations. Jim, Adele, Shannon and Bob slaughter
the birds on site, occasionally hiring an extra person to assist.
The Hayeses are scrupulous about animal health: They adhere to
a routine vaccination regimen; they de-worm strategically by monitoring
parasite infections; and they use a microscope to check fecal matter
for disease and parasites when an animal is sick. If an animal dies,
Jim does a necropsy. “We’ve learned from experience
we can solve a problem quickly, using the scope, without having
outbreaks that cause a lot of loss,” Adele explains. Quick
and accurate disease identification also allows them to avoid ineffective
and over-use of medications.
Economics and Profitability
Direct marketing has made a huge difference in farm income. At auction,
for example, a lamb might bring between $70 and $80. “But
when I run the animal through my retail sales, I get between $150
and $175 retailing by the cut,” Adele says.
The same holds true for the cattle and pigs: retailing brings Sap
Bush Hollow far greater income than selling at auction.
The cumulative impact is that the farm operation is solidly in the
black. “We went from a paper loss to declaring a profit on
our farm,” Adele says. “Farmers write everything off.
Well, I’m writing everything off, and I’m still not
using it up.”
Their long-term goal is for the farm to deliver about 50 percent
of gross sales as income, after all farm expenses are paid.
“We’re finally at the point where we can afford to have
our family join us on the farm,” says Jim, “and that’s
a great feeling.”
By developing a detailed, realistic annual budget and conscientiously
sticking to it, Jim and Adele are meeting their goal of attaining
a 30-percent return on gross sales.
To develop that realistic picture, they follow a simple formula
that they execute thoroughly. They set aside about 30 percent of
the previous year’s sales. Then they estimate all variable
costs — feed, energy, animal costs, processing costs, vet
bills, repairs, fencing, tractor operating costs, processing equipment
— and their mortgage. In estimating feed costs, they follow
commodity prices and try to nail down as many suppliers as possible.
Finally they consider what capital improvements are needed and build
that into the budget.
Environmental Benefits
With all of their land in permanent pastures, erosion is nonexistent.
The Hayeses use no pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, spreading
only composts and manures. Increasingly, they feel their property
is coming back into balance.
As anecdotal evidence of environmental health, Adele lists indicators
her son-in-law, Bob, a wildlife biologist, has identified: “On
a summer evening, he can hear five species of owls, indicating a
healthy diversity of woodland and edge habitats. We’ll have
a five-inch downpour, and the creek that runs through the property
is running clear by the next morning, while all the others in the
area are cloudy for the next two weeks.”
Community and Quality
of Life Benefits
The Hayeses are conscientious about contributing to the economy
and quality of life of their community. Adele estimates that Sap
Bush Hollow put about $90,000 in just one year into the local economy,
considering their inputs, from fencing and piping to garden hoses,
to paying a person to help with processing.
They are also committed to educating other farmers and their customers.
People are welcome to come to the farm and learn how the animals
are raised and experience — both in the quality of the product
and the appearance of the farm — the benefits of the pasture-based
system.
“It gives them a whole new concept of agriculture,”
Adele says. “Everything looks mowed and manicured because
Jim is moving the animals so often. We feel a large part of our
job is to educate.”
Beyond the on-farm education, Shannon wrote The Grassfed Gourmet
Cookbook (Eating Fresh Publications, 2004). The collection of recipes,
designed to work well with grass-fed meats, also offers consumers
tips on how to evaluate pasture-based enterprises to ensure good
quality meat and dairy products, as well as how to work with all
the different cuts of meat typically found on beef, lamb, pork,
venison, bison, veal and poultry.
Transition Advice
Adele warns against the temptation of following an early success
in any enterprise with rapid expansion. “I have the same advice
for everybody,” she says. “It’s the same as cooking a piece of meat
on a grill — go low and slow,” Adele says.
The Future
Shannon and Bob live nearby. Shannon works as a
writer, and they make jellies, Adirondack pack baskets, baked goods,
lip balm, salves and soaps and sell them at the farm. Bob and Shannon’s
daughter, Saoirse, was born in 2003; the first member of the third
generation to enjoy the farm.
Neither Adele nor Jim enjoys managing hired labor, and they feel
their current size is a good match for their management and marketing
abilities.
 Profile
written by Beth Holtzman
For more information:
Jim and Adele Hayes
Sap Bush Hollow Farm
1314 West Fulton Road
Warnerville, NY 12187
www.sapbushhollowfarm.com
sapbush@midtel.net
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