A “Hobby That Got Out of Hand” DeWitt’s Game Farm

Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing a local entrepreneur to see how he went about forming a successful business. I sat down with the owner and operator of DeWitt’s Game Farm, Chris DeWitt to ask a few questions. DeWitt’s Game Farm serves various hunting preserves up and down the East coast by raising and delivering live birds. The farm raises pheasant, quail, chukar, and duck. Selling approximately 435,000 in the 2020 season, quail is the main focus of the business.

Q/A with Chris

Where did you get the idea for your business?
I always enjoyed hunting and working outdoors so I wanted to find a way that I could get paid for doing it.

How did you land your first customer?
I started doing taxidermy work in the early ’90s and met people who enjoyed hunting. They then introduced me to quail hunting. I started raising quail in 1993 and would sell to the customers I was doing taxidermy work for.

How did you land more customers?
My current customers would refer me to their friends and family and in the first ten years, I was able to double the birds I was raising each year through referrals. To this day I’ve had the luxury of never struggling to find customers as they have usually been referred to me.

Describe the optimal customer.
The optimal customer would be large hunting preserves that tend to purchase thousands of birds.

How has your business changed over the years?
In the beginning, I was doing the work myself (raising, selling, etc.) in 1950’s chicken houses putting feed and water out by hand. Over the years we have bought more technologically advanced birdhouses and hatch all of our own quail and chukar. We now have 10 full-time employees and deliver birds up and down the east coast prior to just around the surrounding counties.

How is your business changing with the pandemic?
Our business is focused on outdoor activities and we have seen an increase in demand as more individuals are wanting to get outdoors. Having few employees, it was easy to maintain social distancing within the company, however, if one or more got covid it put a strain on the business.

What is the biggest challenge in your business?
Deciding how many birds to raise each year is tough. We never keep any of the birds for more than one year and the hunting season ends in March. Any birds not sold by March 31st will be extremely hard to sell as the demand drastically decreases. If we sell out before March 31st then our customers will go elsewhere for birds.

Conclusion

All in all, it is evident that Chris DeWitt is passionate about what he does. He often jokes that the business is a “hobby that got out of hand.” However, this interview left me inspired to find what it is that I am passionate about and run with it.