Cabra Mama’s Homestead, located at W4977 County Road BE in the Town of Waukechon, offers an all-natural, farm-to-table service to their customers.
Owners David and Whitney Altenhofen maintain a small-scale farming operation, raising goats, beef cattle, pigs, rabbits and chickens on their 8-acre homestead.
“We offer locally raised farm-fresh meats including beef, pork and chicken, as well as farm-fresh eggs and maple syrup. The meat we raise and sell is all pasture-fed, sustainable and natural — no antibiotics nor hormones,” said Whitney Altenhofen. “Our family enjoys being out in the woods together collecting sap. Our four kids aged 10 to 3 all help on the farm tending to the animals with daily chores, such as gathering eggs, watering animals and giving lots of love to each animal.”
The name Cabra Mama originated when Whitney Altenhofen took Spanish in high school. Because of her fondness for goats, school-age Whitney became known as the crazy goat girl — the girl who loved goats. Convincing her teacher to allow her to bring in two baby goats for Spanish class show-and-tell, she brought bottles of milk for the class to feed her goat babies. That very day, the class dubbed her “Cabra Mama,” which in Spanish means “goat mom.” She knew one day that it would be her future farm’s namesake.
All the meat that the Altenhofens sell in the farm store has been raised on their homestead. They buy calves every year from a friend, raising them until they’re ready to butcher. Pigs are all farrowed on the farm.
The meat chickens are ordered through Gillett Milling. The original flock of laying hens came from numerous other farms. Every spring, the Altenhofens hatch an incubator full of Rhode Island Reds to maintain their flock.
“They’re our work-horse breed that we have as our primary egg-layers,” said David Altenhofen. “We also have Americana chickens that lay blue eggs,” he added, “just for the fun of adding color to our egg cartons.”
The Altenhofens had an appreciation for agriculture at an early age. While David grew up on a farm, Whitney loved 4-H and FFA and raising animals.
“When we moved here, we knew we wanted to raise our own meat and grow a garden,” she said.
The Altenhofens’ initial goal was simply to be self-sustaining. One of the things that moved them along to the next level was partnering with Stubborn Brothers Brewery in Shawano. In 2020, they reached out to the brewery, explained they were a small homestead and inquired about their spent brewers’ grain.
“We asked them if we could pick up their brewers’ grain to feed to our animals, and they said sure. So we make a trip to the brewery about five days a week, sometimes six, and pick up their fresh brewers’ grain,” said Whitney Altenhofen. “We have to add minerals and carbs, but most of the farm runs on that brewers’ grain. Because our feed costs aren’t crazy high, we can keep our prices down.”
The availability of the brewers’ grain gave the family a means to increase the number of animals they raise while, in turn, keeping overhead feed costs minimal.
“Because we utilized the brewers’ grain to feed our animals, we have more options available to us,” said David Altenhofen.
That’s what helped jump-start the family to the point of producing excess of what they needed. Pondering how they could go about sharing this surplus with others, they decided to make a business out of it.
At a competitive price to the consumer, they offer individual cuts of meat instead of halves and quarters. For sale are bulk hamburger and patties; steak, roasts, brats, snack sticks, pork chops, pork loin, brisket and chicken.
All their meat — except for chicken — is packaged through Roskom Meats in Freedom. They maintained food retail license to sell prepackaged food, with required routine inspections of the premises.
Whitney and David Altenhofen plan to expand the footprint of the location to accommodate growth by adding an extra freezer and a bigger display area for new products such as craft items, farm décor and all-natural dog treats. Whitney Altenhofen also wants to experiment using tallow for lotions and soaps and fashioning suet bars for birds. Next year a bigger garden is planned as well, to offer vegetables.
“We want to stress that we are a farmstead which provides locally-grown, home-raised, natural and sustainable, high-quality meats that we put a lot of love into and are fortunate to have an abundance of to share with the community,” David Altenhofen said. “We are trying to spread the love of farming. It’s important to us to teach our kids to have some connection to their food instead of just going to the grocery store.”
David Altenhofen said it’s important for people to know the origins of their food, which includes knowing the farmer that raises the animal and knowing that the animal lived in a pasture or in a backyard.
“We’re glad we ended up here. We have just opened our farm store this past January and have been blessed with local support,” he said. “We have a convenient location with good traffic flow. Most of our business is local — there’s been a lot of great support from the Bonduel and Shawano communities. The people are amazing and loving.”
Cabra Mama’s Homestead operates a self-serve store which is open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., with cash and Venmo accepted. The Altenhofens have a Facebook page at Cabra Mama’s Homestead.