Producer Profile | Oak Valley Farm

Oak Valley Farm
Keith & Trish Nichols

Oak Valley Farm has been in the Nichols family since 1919. Keith's great-grandfather farmed cotton. There are still some of the old rock terraces that were used to grow the cotton and are now used to sow food plots for wildlife. Keith's father and uncle took over the farm in the 50's. They grew silage and hay crops. They had a large herd of Hereford cows and built concrete bunks to pre-condition and feed out their calves. Keith took over his uncle's part in 1980 and then bought his father's part in 1987. The farm is currently 300 acres.
The Nichols farm has evolved from cotton (1920's to 1950's) to milo, wheat, corn crops as well as a swine operation. In the 1970's, the farm converted to a poultry, hay, cow-calf and stocker operation. After returning from the University of Georgia with a degree in Animal Science, Keith took over the farm and began to farm full time.

Keith and his wife, Trish, are currently stockering 2000 calves annually and have a small herd of cows. They have placed roughly 17,000 head of calves as order buyers. They also operate poultry houses with approximately 540,000 broilers per year. Nichols Farm is family owned and operated with only 2 part-time employees.
Their goal is to market a load of reputation stocker cattle per month. They are also continuing to rebuild their commercial cow herd. It is very important to them to remain good stewards of the land they live on and farm. In recent years, they have won several wildlife and environmental awards, including the Franklin County Cattlemen's Association/NCBA/Stocker/Finisher Cattleman of the 2000 Georgia Cattlemen's Association and the 2005 Turkey Management Award. They ultimately hope to be able to preserve their farm and its beauty as well as their way of life. They will achieve this through a long-range preservation program so they can protect this land for their family and future generations to come.