Quality comes naturally at Gills & Beaks Game Farm

When Howard Dunham, a retired operations manager for the postal service, first established a farm in Wisconsin 30 years ago, he only had a handful of chickens on his farm. Now, decades later, flocks of people come to the Oshkosh Saturday Farmers Markets to buy Dunham’s chickens.

Dunham’s farm is called Gills & Beaks Game Farm with the slogan “Where Quality Comes Naturally.” Along with chickens, Dunham also raises sheep, emus, guinea hens, ducks, geese, pheasants and five varieties of turkeys. The farm consists of 19 acres in Winneconne, situated on Lake Poygan.

“It’s just a little farm out in the country, what they call a gentleman’s farm,” Dunham explained.

Dunham doesn’t manage his gentleman’s farm completely by himself. He has five children who help. His helpers include two of his adult children from a previous marriage, a 21-year-old stepson and two kids aged 14 and 11.

Dunham said he’s always lived on a farm. He was born in Florida and his family raised birds for family use.

“But it’s a long story how I got to Wisconsin,” Dunham said. “My dad is retired from the Air Force and he flew for Western Airlines. When my parents got divorced, my dad asked me to come up for the summer to take care of his land by Lake Tomahawk. He had 160 acres, and there was no electricity and you had to pump your own water. And I loved it.”

At the time, Dunham wanted to be a forest ranger, and he decided to enroll at Stevens Point for its program. But he then transferred to Oshkosh to get a degree in archaeology. Dunham then went on to earn a business degree.

Dunham stresses the importance of quality and natural products on his farm, stemming from his studies at UWO.

“I had to write a term paper at UWO, and I chose to do it on the Food and Drug Administration, and it came to be an eye-opening experience,” Dunham explained.

But Dunham said he has always been a health nut. He’s been running for 20 years and has two gardens at home, where everything is organically grown.

This has been Dunham’s first year selling the products from his farm, and he only sells at the Oshkosh Saturday Farmers Market.

“I started selling at the market because I wanted to generate more income and provide an alternative protein in which people do not have to worry about chemicals and additives,” said Dunham.

However, Dunham has been distributing his chickens for years.

“Before this year, I used to sell to my co-workers and I would always sell out. So before coming to the market here, I thought, ‘Gosh, what am I going to do if I don’t sell all these chickens?’”

Dunham had nothing to worry about. Although he only sold seven chickens the first week, his stand at the market has become increasingly more popular with many repeat customers. Since his first outing at the market, he has been selling out of eggs regularly and oftentimes he runs out of chickens too.

“Recently someone came to me to buy a chicken,” Dunham said. “She said she had been at a party and people started talking about my chickens and she had to come and get some.”

A customer who was nearby when Dunham told that story said she must have been at that party.

The roasting chickens Dunham sells are what he calls “two days fresh,” meaning that they are processed two days before the Oshkosh Saturday Farmers Market. The chickens are from four to five pounds.

Along with Dunham’s popular chickens and eggs, he also sells pheasants and turkey jerky at the market.

Many of Dunham’s customers have expressed interest in continuing to have a supply of his chickens throughout the winter, after the market closes.

“I’ve been handing out cards for when after the market closes if people still want things from the farm,” Dunham said. “But I don’t have chickens year-round. It’s too hard in the snow. However, I have anticipated people wanting chickens for the winter, so I will start bringing more to the market in September and October for people to freeze over the winter.”

Dunham expressed his desire to keep his business on a small-scale.

“I want to stay small, so I can control the quality. Chickens can be messy if you let them have their way,” he said.

Dunham will also be able to supply some of his customers with Thanksgiving turkeys, sold on a first come, first serve basis. The five varieties of turkeys he raises on his farm are all near extinction, including the breeds Narragansett, Royal Palm and Bourbon Reds.

“There are only hundreds left of these birds, and I have 20 or more in those varieties,” Dunham said.

Besides those turkeys, Dunham will also provide the traditional Thanksgiving turkey for customers, which is not a natural turkey.

“I just love turkeys,” Dunham said. “But the traditional ones are not as sharp as the natural turkeys. They just don’t have enough sense. The others are descendants of the wild turkey.”

Dunham is not only concerning himself with the birds. As the name Gills & Beaks Game Farm implies, Dunham is planning to start harvesting fish at his farm, including perch, blue gills and bait fish.

“I plan on digging a pond and using water from our spring,” Dunham said. “We have an artesian spring. It’s ice cold. When you put your feet in it, your feet turn blue. We’ve been drinking from it, and it’s safe."

Dunham then added with a laugh, “And no one’s keeled over yet.”

Dunham’s true love lies with the birds, however, from “their feathers to the way they act.”
When asked if it is hard to kill the chickens for market since he loves birds so much, Dunham replied, “It is hard, but they are all white and all look identical, so it’s hard to make pets out of them.”

But he has kept pets, ranging from a flock of geese he kept for 20 years to a wood duck he called Mrs. Woody to a chicken that survived being attacked by a weasel.

Dunham cares greatly about his customers and tries to provide the best product with the best service, which is apparent by his friendly attitude and popularity.

“The big thing is to make sure that I get people no run-of-the-mill product,” Dunham said.