Farm Hounds

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Farm Hounds finds success with all-natural dog treats

Atlanta-based Farm Hounds dehydrates animal parts to create nutritious dog treats and chews. (Farm Hounds)

A dog prepares to snack on a duck head from Farm Hounds. (Farm Hounds)

By Dyana Bagby

Farm Hounds is an ecommerce business that sells dog treats and chews. Not your typical chews, though. They package and ship duck heads, pig snouts, pork hearts, turkey feet and chicken jerky. Their products also include hog hide rolls, turkey gizzard sticks and duck strips. Dehydrated beef blood churned into sprinkles make yummy food toppers and a best seller.

The Atlanta company gets the raw materials for its all-natural dog treats and chews from its partner farms dedicated to humane animal treatment, including no use of antibiotics or hormones. The farmers also follow regenerative agriculture practices that promote a healthy ecosystem for livestock and the land.

“You’re seeing just a huge movement of people who want their pets to have quality food and they also want to give them quality treats, which is where we come in,” said Stephen Calsbeek, co-owner of Farm Hounds.

The history of Farm Hounds goes back to 2004 when the owners opened a dog boarding company that featured an area where they sold a selection of treats and food. The popularity of that retail space, dubbed The Whole Dog Market, became so popular, several more stores opened. The Whole Dog Market now has stores near Piedmont Park, in Vinings, Sandy Springs and Westside Village.

In 2015, a farmer from White Oak Pastures, a farm in Bluffton, Ga., came into one of the stores and asked about developing all-natural treats and chews direct from the farm.

“And it opened our eyes to farmers having access to products that cannot go to human markets, but that dogs love to chew,” Calsbeek said.

Today, Farm Hounds partners with White Oak Pastures and numerous other family farms to produce and sell treats and chews made from raw animal materials. The company has a manufacturing facility in Marietta where the animal parts are dehydrated and a warehouse in Smyrna where a team packages the online orders for shipping. And business is booming. In 2019, Farm Hounds received 2,212 online orders; in 2020, the company did 8,200 orders. In 2021, as COVID-19 continued and ecommerce soared, Farm Hounds filled nearly 32,000 orders. Summertime historically means a drop in orders because people are traveling, Calsbeek said. But so far, the company is close to 50% over where it was this time last year.

“We’ve done a really good job building a community and doing something that has a little bit of a nice niche that isn’t really replicated to the level we’re doing it,” he said.

“We let people know where the treats and chews come from and put the farm’s name on every single product,” he said. “This connects our customers to the small regenerative agricultural farms that we’re working with to source good products and to make good treats. Dogs love it and their parents are happy.”