Woodstock, Ontario
I live on a 150 acre mixed crop and livestock farm. In 1949 my father bought his first mink for breeding- 4 females and one male. When my father married, my mother brought mink with her to the farm. Over the next few years the farm grew to 500 females and when I took over the farm after college I continued to grow the mink side of the business. Today I raise 3200 females that produce roughly 13,000 mink a year.
Ever since I was a young child I’ve always been involved with the mink. When we came home from school we helped with chores. And I was known as a mink farmer at school.
The farm is still a family run business today. My brother has returned to the farm from being an accountant and is working with me along with a nephew. And we work with eight or ten hired men. They are mainly younger local men who work hard and enjoy what they do. I’m proud to be able to keep the younger folks in our rural community employed.
Our mixed farm is like many of our farm neighbours. We all have different ways of doing things. Some of us have gone way forward in the ways we have specialized and on some places life hasn’t changed nearly as much as people might think it has.