NEVADA – A Nevada family is now sharing its passion and love for white-tailed deer with others in the community.
Jody and Melissa Gregory, longtime deer farmers in Crawford County, have recently opened up their farm – Wooded Acres Whitetails – for public tours. A chance to see, pet, and feed 100 deer being raised and bred on the 12-acre site southwest of Bucyrus.
“Everybody that has come out so far loves it. They leave with a smile,” said Jody Gregory, who oversees the family operation tucked away behind a cornfield at 1804 Marion-Melmore Road. “The kids, especially, like it.”
It’s “en-deering.”
Bucks in velvet. Baby fawns. And the opportunity to bottle feed medium-sized mammals native to Ohio and North America. But more importantly, an educational experience that begins with a 15-minute video presentation and ends at the big buck pens.
Melissa Gregory, the “deer farmer’s wife,” said each animal has a numbered ear tag for identification.
But she has also given names to many of the fawns – Pixie, Peaches, and Pumpkin, to name a few – and enjoys feeding them cut-up cucumbers for treats.
“Those babies, they just bring us a whole lot of joy. We bottle feed the doe fawns, and we just enjoy having them as pets,” said Melissa, who also teaches second grade at Wayside Christian School in Bucyrus.
“Everyone seems to enjoy them as well.
They’re very unique.”
The Gregory’s, who opened the farm in 2012, said they considered other types of livestock before deciding on whitetails. They purchased six deer at first, all licensed and certified through the Ohio Department of Agriculture, and took a course offered by the North American Deer Farmers Association.
“It was really exciting.
It was a bit overwhelming at first,” said Gregory, who grew up in Melmore, Ohio. “Like any farmer, you’re trying to figure out how to maximize the resources you have. We’ve had a great supporting cast, though.”
Wooded Acres Whitetails is raising 38 fawns this year, which are bottle-fed at 36 hours old and housed in a separate barn until they are four weeks old, then transferred to three fawning pens at the rear of the property, he said. A visit there is the second stop on the hour-long tour of the farm.
All of the pens are equipped with automatic waterers and hay and feed stations. Sometimes it’s difficult, though, for a visitor to spot the domesticated animals, who blend in with the natural landscape by hiding in tree roots, a pile of logs, or a hollowed tree trunk near the fence.
The four Gregory children are actively involved in the day-to-day operation, although the oldest, 20-year-old Judson, is away at college in Tennessee. Jansen,17, a senior at Wayside Christian, and 15-year-old Jadon and 11-year-old Alisia – the “fawn queen” – are full-fledged deer hands.
Deer farming in recent years has increased in popularity, Gregory said, with about 400 deer ranches in Ohio alone. He calls it a “natural progression” – fawning season in the spring and then the cycle for bucks, who grow their antlers, only to shed them at the end of winter.
Gregory and the boys have recently built a small gift shop on the premises, complete with T-shirts, magnets, coffee mugs, and deer antler chews for dogs. Next year, he said, plans are to add a few different species to the herd, possibly Red Stag or Axis deer.
“So many people when they find out you have deer, they just want to come out and pet them,” Gregory said.
“It’s an opportunity to share what we do here with a lot of people. If they’re here, they basically like animals and, we like animals too.”
Tours of Wooded Acres are being offered Monday through Saturday until the end of August. They can be booked online at woodedacreswhitetails.com/farm-tours or by calling 419-561-0787.
