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‘Hunt Family Preserve’ caters to hunters

EXPLORING WEST AMWELL’S FARMLAND

By Betty Jane Hunt, Special Writer
   This week I want to tell you about our farm, which has been known as the Hunt Farm for the nearly 100 years. I am only a Hunt by marriage, but it doesn’t make me any less attached to this land and the heritage it represents.
   The Hunt Farm is located on Mt. Airy-Harbourton Road and is most easily identified by the blue silo and the old wagon located near the road with the identifying sign — “Hunt Family Preserve.” The land is on both sides of the road and consists of 90 acres. Five generations have lived on the farm.
   Before the farm was purchased by Sarah and Sylvanus Hunt in the early 1900s, it was owned by the Wesners and was known as the “Township Poor Farm,” because the township paid for people, who had nowhere else to go, to live there with the Wesners.
   Sarah and Sylvanus’ son, John, stayed on the farm. He and his wife Margaret lived on the farm where they had dairy cows, chickens, and raised crops to feed the animals. Margaret (known by all as Mag) was a local schoolteacher and John had an egg route around Lambertville, in addition to farming. They had two sons, Larry and Wayne. The two boys went off to college and got married. That’s where I come into the picture. Larry married me. Larry took over the farm as a dairy farm in 1967. When the dairy barn burned in 1989, he stopped milking cows, but continued to raise dairy replacement heifers, beef, and hay.
   After Larry’s sudden death in October 2000, the family had to decide what to do. Everyone agreed they loved the land and wanted to continue seeing it farmed. After many alternatives were explored, it was agreed that our sons, David and Paul, and Larry’s brother, Wayne, would make the farm a public hunting preserve. They agreed that hunting is something they all enjoyed, they could do it on their own time, and it would preserve the farm. In 2002 it became the “Hunt Family Preserve” and provides a place for licensed hunters to hunt for pheasants and chukars.
   The family continues to run the preserve today on the 90-acre farm plus another 50 acres leased. It is usually open only on weekends since David, Paul, and Wayne all have full-time jobs. Occasionally Wayne will oversee hunts during the week since he is self-employed. Paul now lives in the farmhouse with his wife Tammy and their two children. This means Paul usually cares for the birds before and after work. John Paul, now a fifth-grader at West Amwell Elementary School, helps with the birds and hay more each year.
   The pheasants are purchased when they are a day old and are full grown at 20 weeks. Wayne does most of the caring for the young chicks. He considers it a challenge to raise them with few fatalities from sickness, disease, and predators. The worst predators are hawks, owls and foxes. The Preserve currently raises approximately 1,500 pheasants and 300 chukars per year. Chukars are members of the partridge family. About 5,000 bales of hay also are sold each year.
   Hunters make appointments to hunt individually or in groups. The fee varies depending on the number of birds, but averages $100-$120 per hunter. Almost all of the hunters have their pheasants dressed out and take the meat home.
   The “Hunt Family Preserve” is a family farm that is truly run as a labor of love for farming and the land. The preserve is open to hunters from Oct. 1 through April 30. It is strictly regulated by the NJ Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife.
   After the hunting season, there are strip crops to plant as cover for the birds, pens to mend, hay to bale, machinery to repair, etc. Besides family members, there is an excellent support group — including Rich Kenny who has come faithfully from Metuchen every Saturday or Sunday for 10 years to work on machinery or do whatever else needs to be done in the shop. Then there are Luke McDade and Doug Stokes, who help with the hay. Many other local and loyal friends help when they can. David helps Paul and Wayne run the hunts and is a real asset for his ability to repair almost anything. John Paul helps catch birds and release them. I pay the bills. No one has ever taken any compensation. All profits are put back into the farm to improve the land, buildings, and machinery.
   To date, the family has decided not to put the land into any preservation program. It isn’t because we are against the programs. Hunts tend to be conservative and independent and as long as we don’t need the money and we have another generation that loves the farm, we will continue to preserve it in our own way.
   As with many farms, ours is already “preserved” by all of the regulations passed by the state and West Amwell Township in recent years. These regulations affect the equity and what we can do with our property. This is part of the reason we don’t want to be involved with government programs any more than we have to be. For now, we have three generations currently making the farm viable and a place where people can come to enjoy sports hunting, the scenery, and the camaraderie and fellowship of others with like interests.
   Anyone interested in hunting or purchasing hay, can contact Paul Hunt at 397-2007 or visit: www.huntsfamilypreserve.com.