Zoe Farms: Farming the way nature intended
The Schnabels run Zoe Farms based on treating the land and the animals with honor and respect. Dustin, left, Erin, Sierrah and Morgan.
Right along Faircrest Street just south of Canton, there is a family dedicated to sustainable farming methods that respect land and the animals that graze on it. Dustin and Erin Schnabel and their daughters, Sierrah and Morgan, run Zoe Farms with a passion for raising healthy food and regenerating the land.
“We’re dealing with a very holistic, natural process here,” Dustin Schnabel said. “The key is everyone moves. We move them through the land to distribute the impact they make, and moving them allows them to forage, eat grass, seeds, bugs, worms — whatever they like.”
For instance, the “Hen Hotel,” as they refer to it, is moved every morning. Relocating it gives the hens fresh forage and keeps them from eating where they poop.
By moving the animals around, they also spread nature’s fertilizer around, eliminating the need to use commercial fertilizers or chemicals of any kind.
Schnabel and his wife Erin started the farm on the very same land where Schnabel grew up starting at the age of 8. While it wasn’t a farm then, Schnabel did have horses.
“All throughout my life, I’ve raised animals in some form,” he said. “It seems like my soul is in the land.”
Today, the farm is home to a huge number of free-range, egg-laying hens, meat chickens, turkeys and pigs. The Schnabels also raise cattle, but they are kept on another piece of land.
The farm’s eggs and meat products are sold out of a renovated 1942 caboose where shoppers can purchase organic free-range hen eggs, pasture-raised chicken, woodland-raised pork, free-range turkey and 100% grass-fed beef.
The farm also carries organic produce, dairy products and other foods from local suppliers they know and trust.
“We curate the selection based on a deep connection with the producers, so we know exactly where it came from,” Schnabel said. “This is the cleanest, broadest food selection you can find anywhere.”
Erin Schnabel said the other products they carry are those they feel are important to their own health. “The fermented foods, the mushrooms, the wood-fired sourdough bread are all extremely important,” she said.
Treating animals with dignity
A trip to the sow and boar area of the farm demonstrates the result of treating animals with kindness and respect.
“Sows are some of the most dangerous creatures around,” Dustin Schnabel said. He said this as he proceeded to enter the sows’ domain, where he received friendly greetings. (It may have helped that he came bearing egg treats.)
“Every animal that lives on our farm has the best possible life they can have,” Dustin Schnabel said.
Even the farm’s method of keeping predators at bay is natural. White Pyrenees dogs guard each group of animals. “Those dogs enable us to produce the animals in the environment the way that we want, which is totally free range,” Erin Schnabel said.
Dustin Schnabel said people first come to Zoe Farms because they like the idea but return because they love how much better the food tastes.
“The vast majority of the people who support us financially are not rich people,” Dustin Schnabel said. “What they’ve done is made a conscious decision to make food an important part of their life.”
Dustin Schnabel believes there is no such thing as cheap food. “You will pay your farmer to do it right for you, or you will pay your pharmacist and doctor later. If you want food to be your medicine, then we’ll be your ‘farmacist.’”
For the Schnabels, the farm is a seven-day-a-week operation, working 12-14 hours a day in the busy season of April through November. “It’s hard work, yes,” Dustin Schnabel said. “But we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Zoe Farms is located at 5676 Faircrest St. SW in Canton. Shopping at the caboose is cash or check only Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Orders can be placed online by credit card at www.zoefarms.com and will be ready for pickup as soon as the next day.