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By DAPHNE HUTCHINSON
Arundel Newspapers Special Writer
At the country store in Rappahannock County’s F T. Valley, the regulars who stop in the morning for coffee josh farm manager Charlie Jenkins about the livestock he’s raising at Piedmont Farms just down the road.
“They laugh and call them goats and other things,” said the Rappahannock native who’s been supervising beef cattle and small grain operations for almost 25 years.
He doesn’t take offense. For those accustomed to seeing fields of plodding Black Angus and Charlais steers, little fallow deer popping in their characteristic kangeroo hops across a pasture are a comical sight. The idea of raising such dainty looking animals for meat might seem a laughing matter to local farmers.
But while Jenkins smiles along with the disbelievers, for the farm manager and his employer, Rolf Graage of Washington, I).C., this is no joke.
With his partner, veterinarian Ray Hyde, Mr. Graage has upwards of $1.5 million invested in Virginia’s first deer farming venture.
The 900-plus acres of Piedmont Farm cost $1,250,000, and the rest went for the reclamation of land and outbuildings, the purchase of stock, and the enclosure of 100 acres with special high tensile fencing designed by New Zealand deer farmers.
“It’s capital intensive,” Mr. Graage acknowledged, but added that the outlay will be recouped through “a good cash flow.”
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