We are Matthew and Jerri Betsinger and the owners of Abba’s Acres.
It all started in 2010, when we moved with our 3 children: Lauren, Daniel, and Joshua to purchase 8 acres and a house in Richmondville, New York that had belonged to Jerri’s grandparents. At that time, just her grandmother remained, and the land was used only for producing hay and watching wildlife. Located in beautiful Schoharie County we quickly fell in love with the property and were excited to do something more with it.
In 2011, we decided to buy our first chickens. We bought 12 chickens from our local farm store. Being on the frugal side, we felt buying straight run chickens was the most economical choice. We figured our odds of hens to roosters had to be close to 50/50. We took our chicks home, raised them up in our dining room until they were ready to go outside to the small coop we had built. Let me warn you, straight run is not 50/50, it is more like 80/20. We had so many roosters! Nonetheless, we loved our chickens, and it wasn’t long before they were providing us with more eggs than we could eat. We began offering eggs to friends who fell in love with them and wanted more. So, we got more chickens (this time we bought pullets only). Soon we had 12 laying hens, then 50, and our first regular customers.
By 2012, more and more people wanted our eggs, and we didn’t have enough to go around. This was the start of everything. We loved that something as small as an egg was bringing people to our little “farm” and giving us a chance to share our lives with them. It was then we decided that perhaps we are farmers and should make it official. So, that is what we did – Abba’s Acres was born.
Since we now were officially farmers, we needed to start getting serious. We knew that if we were going to farm, we were going to offer healthy and wholesome foods. We stepped back and looked at the natural way a chicken lives. What was it created to do and eat? It was very clear to us that the commercial way of raising chickens was not natural, instead raising chickens on pasture seemed much more normal. So that is what we did. Our laying flock already roamed the yard looking for bugs, eating grass, and enjoying the sunshine. As our flock grew, we moved them from the yard to our pasture field. By 2017, our farm had really grown and become quite diversified. Our layer flock reached a peak of about 200 layers. We started raising meat chickens for Le Coq Rico restaurant in Manhattan, and then added more meat chickens to bring to our markets. We have raised thousands of chickens to keep up with demand as well as dabbling in other poultry over the years, such as turkeys, ducks, guineas, chicken pullets – of course, all pasture raised.
As our children have grown, we have encouraged them to find something in the farm that they love. We have encouraged and helped them start their own small businesses within the farm that will one day give them the option of supporting their own family and also added to the diversity we could offer our customers. Lauren started baking cookies and pies at our farmer’s markets. Then she decided to try her hand at fudge. Since we have a herd of registered Nigerian Dwarf goats, she was inspired to try it with goat’s milk. All her products were a hit! Daniel found his passion when he convinced his grandpa to teach him how to tap trees and make maple syrup. He was hooked before the first drop of sap fell into the bucket on the tree in the yard. Daniel continues to grow and produce maple syrup each year. He has also added an addition syrup to his offerings – Hickory Syrup! Both syrups have proven to be popular at all our markets. Joshua settled on keeping honeybees as his business. Anyone who has tried their hand at keeping bees knows that this is not an easy feat. But he has continued to persevere through many ups and downs. On top of offering honey, he has found a passion for making beeswax candles as well. It is amazing watching our children grow into such mature and responsible people. They are quickly becoming the future generation of Abbas Acres.
Now as our children start to head off to college, we find ourselves making more changes around the farm. With less hands available and more farmers entering the pasture raised chicken realm, we have decided to scale back on the poultry. We are still keeping a layer flock for eggs, although it is much smaller than in years past. We will also continue to focus on the goats, continuing to improve our herd and offer quality kids for sale to other people looking to get into raising goats or expanding their existing herd. With quality goats comes plentiful milk to keep expanding our goat’s milk soaps. We are also increasing the amount of fruit we are growing here on the farm in response to our growing demand for jams. We are hoping to also offer more fresh fruit for sale from the farm and our markets. When we aren’t home and doing the farming thing, we are enjoying travelling all over New York State, and even beyond to neighboring states, to offer our products at festivals and markets. It is a joy meeting new customers from all over.