Today we’d like to introduce you to Karyn and Calvin Medders.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Chubby Dog Farm is a small, beyond organic farm in deep east Texas. While living in the suburbs of Houston and in the CrossFit community, we learned about the paleo diet and sustainably raised foods. Calvin, who grew up on a small ranch in south Texas and has always hunted and had a garden, felt a pull to the farming life. Although extreme, we liquidated our suburban lifestyle, bought raw land, and started Chubby Dog Farm.
We aim to sustainably raise animals and produce, to care for our food from conception to table, feeling morally justified in eating every day, as well as improving the flavor for us and our neighbors. We raise pigs, but also have chickens, eggs, a few goats and seasonal produce.
Calvin and I are now concentrating on our artisan pork business. We raise mangalitsa crossed with red wattle and hereford pigs, and most recently added a hereford boar and a wattlelitsa sow to the breeding program. They roam and feast on acreage in the piney woods, and we supplement their natural foraging diet with non-GMO and non-soy feed with no hormones or antibiotics ever.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
We transitioned from suburbia to farm in a 21 foot travel trailer. It took us a year and a half to clear land with hand tools and the occasional rented tractor/labor… and build our home. We finished out the inside of the barn dominium mostly ourselves with cash, so it was a proud day to move from the trailer into the barndo. We vowed that we would never camp again.
Calvin loves the garden, and I love the animals. We started with boer and boer crossed meat goats, which proved to be difficult to keep in our region, as they are prone to be parasitic because of the moisture. The decision to liquidate the bulk of our small herd was a difficult one, but we kept a few hardy characters and alleviated much of our stress. Pigs are much easier to keep.
Finding non-GMO feed at a reasonable price has proven to be difficult. Even though we are a small farm, we are still feeding up to 80+ pigs per day. We fed a brand name non-GMO feed when we were smaller, but the cost became unreasonable. So we mix our own blend, and we are constantly in search of better pricing and quality protein sources to optimize the pigs’ health.
After our unsustainable goat venture, we decided that we would listen to our land and raise what she liked and provided for naturally. Pigs thrive in the piney woods. We inoculated mushrooms into sweet gum logs which are plentiful on our property. We hope to soon have bees. We want to work with nature instead of fight against it.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Chubby Dog Farm story. Tell us more about the business.
Our motto is “happy meat tastes better.” We raise healthy pigs in their natural environment with low stress and plenty forage and supplemented non-GMO feed. They are able to be piggy. They root around in the dirt for tubers, cool themselves in mud holes, and roam their paddocks at their leisure. The sows build their own nests in the paddocks where they have their babies with no help from us. The only time we interfere is to castrate the young males at 7-10 days old. We say that our pigs have “one bad day”, which is slaughter day. We suppose the males have two.
We stress the above facts to say that our animals are happy. They are well-fed a natural feed with no hormones or antibiotics. They have low stress. All of this shows in the pork. The fat is creamy, and the meat is red and well marbled. Our artisan pork is incredible.
We started the farm for ourselves so we could know where our food came from… so we could trust that it was grown or raised properly. Somehow we have turned it into an actual business thanks to events like Cochon555, farm to table restaurants mostly in Dallas and a handful of loyal customers from our circle in Houston. We are a very small farm. We know we cannot feed the world. We don’t necessarily want to be the sole provider for our restaurants. We simply want to be one of their pork purveyors.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We are good and honest people. We have always worked really hard at whatever we did, and we haven’t lived particularly charmed lives. So when Chef Manabu “Hori” Horiuchi won Cochon555 Houston 2017 using our pig, I openly wept right there in front of everyone. Sure enough, that was when our artisan pork business took off. Call it luck if you want. We think it was the universe giving us a little boost for good behavior. Karma, if you will.
Pricing:
- Whole pig $4.75/# hanging weight plus $75 processing fee
- Half pig $5/# hanging weight plus $75 processing fee
Contact Info:
- Address: 3539 CR 1620
Grapeland, TX 75844 - Website: www.chubbydogfarm.com
- Phone: 361-205-7472
- Email: medderskc@sbcglobal.net
- Instagram: @chubbydogfarm
- Facebook: Chubby Dog Farm
- Twitter: @chubbydogfarm
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
