HOWLE’S HINTS: From Fruithurst to Farm To Fork

Pictured left to right: Lexie (4-year-old daughter that passed away last November), Addie-8; Kaleb; Stetson-15 months old, Karah, Dusty-8, and Maddie-6.

The journey begins in Fruithurst, Alabama, and ends at the tip of a table fork. What started as an attempt to provide their fledgling family with healthy, locally raised meats led this young couple on an odyssey to create a first-generation, grass-fed farm operation. Their destination is known as Rock House Farms LLC.

In the beginning of their marriage, Kaleb and Karah Skinner were far from being farmers. Kaleb was driving over an hour into Atlanta every day working construction, and Karah was running a small salon out of the back of their house. Once their first child arrived, they both had a desire to simplify life, eat healthy foods, find a place they could farm and home school their children.

“I’ve always had a love for farm animals,” says Kaleb. “Unfortunately, I had never farmed, and Karah and I had to learn most of what we know through our own research and trial and error.” The couple first contracted to have four mega chicken houses constructed on their new home place of 36 acres. “We thought this would be the quickest way for us to transition from public work to total farm income,” says Kaleb.

“The commercial chicken houses allowed us to pay our bills, get some working capital and do more homesteading things, but the mega houses weren’t really the farming style we were looking for,” says Karah. The pastoral views of cattle, chickens, hogs and sheep living off the land was closer to their vision, and this was the way they planned to provide meat for their own family and neighbors.

Kaleb, Karah and Dusty check on the cows before rotating them to a new paddock.

Karah lifts the rear of the pen with hand trucks, while Kaleb and Dusty push and pull the pen to a new section for grazing and bugging.

The Skinners are transitioning away from the mega house model, and they are both now full-time farmers sharing the daily chores with each other and their children. Their approach involves raising grass-fed cattle, sheep and chickens as well as a more free-range model for their hog farming operation on their owned property as well as an additional 160 acres that they have leased.

The grass-fed, Black Angus cattle are intensively grazed and rotated through paddocks in the pastures. They have recently purchased a South Poll bull from Greg Judy, a well-known advocate of mob grazing, as their sire bull. The South Poll is a four-way cross among Red Angus, Hereford, Barzona and Senepol. “From weaning to butcher, our beef is totally raised and finished on grass,” says Kaleb. They currently have 55 head of cattle, and each offspring is planned for grassfed meat sales.

Once the cattle are rotated through grazing, the Skinners move a couple of chicken pens with 150 chickens through the rotation as a follow-up. The chickens work as clean-up agents after the livestock leaves the field, and the birds leave behind their nitrogen-rich waste to enrich the soil. After eight weeks, the birds have reached broiler size and they will be taken to the processor.

When it’s time to move the portable chicken pens that Kaleb built, Karah gets on the backside of the pen with a set of hand trucks while Kaleb lifts the front of the pen. Together, they move the chicken grazing pen to the next section of pasture where they will supplement the grass and insect diet of their White Rock Cornish mix birds with a non-GMO, soy-free scratch feed. The “chicken tractor” is moved at least once a day to allow for fresh pickings for the birds.

Kaleb, Karah and Dusty check on the hogs’ water supply.

Kaleb lifts the pen lid to feed the chickens and check on their water supply.

The Skinners’ 20 head-hog operation is made up of Berkshire and Duroc pigs. The Skinners give the animals access to pasture grass, free-choice minerals and free-choice feed made of black oil sunflower seeds, soybeans, corn and seasonal vegetables, including pumpkins from nearby Bennett’s Farm Pumpkin Patch each fall. “In the fall, we give them access to the many acorn-producing trees we have scattered across the property,” says Kaleb.

The sheep have free-choice browsing and grazing on the property as well. “Sheep will eat certain types of grass and weeds that a cow won’t eat,” says Karah. “Our biggest market for sheep meat is at the Jacksonville Farmers Market.”

The Skinners use a processor just across the Georgia state line for their beef, pork and lamb retail cuts. The chickens are taken to a processing operation in Alabama. “We mostly sell to local people through putting the word out on Facebook and Instagram,” says Karah. “For instance, we picked up our beef last Friday, and by Saturday at noon, we were completely sold out.”

Most of the meat that the Skinners sell is to local consumers. Nearby folks place their order and when the meat comes in, it is stored in refrigerators or freezers until the customer picks it up. Karah says they keep extra common cuts of meat on hand just for callins from local individuals, but most of the meat has been preordered. “Facebook and Instagram have been our biggest marketing tools, and with the COVID-19, our business has only increased because people are wanting to avoid the crowds,” says Karah.

The Skinners’ philosophy is simple. With plenty of faith in God, He will allow you to take care of the land and the livestock, and they will take care of you. For more information about Rock House Farms in Fruithurst, Alabama, visit them through Facebook or Instagram, and you can also visit their website at www.rockhousefarmsllc.com.

The free-choice feed and minerals are available to the hogs in the background.