About G&D Farms, Inc.
G&D Farms manufactures top quality horse, cattle, chicken and deer feeds by growing its own wheat, soybeans and oats. We serve the customers of the Gulf Coast and Black Belt Alabama regions by supplying select products to improve their farms, livestock, home and pets.
The Tanner Williams location is the base for the farm operations and incudes a 5,000 sf country themed store with hardware, kitchenware, clothing and gifts. Their staff offers expertise in livestock, farming and hunting.
G&D Outdoors in Grove Hill specializes in hunting and fishing. They can answer all your turkey call and dog tracking questions.
Here is some history from owner Starla Davis...
We just celebrated the 25th Anniversary of our business, G&D Farms, and several people asked me, "Haven't you been making feed longer than that?”
Well, yes, we have. So here is some history.
My grandpa, Roy “Big Daddy” Gaston, was born in 1898. He was originally from Grand Bay, AL and married my grandmother, Mattie Tanner, from Tanner Williams, AL. In 1918 they homesteaded this farm and I still have the original deed signed by then President Calvin Coolidge. Big Daddy was a vegetable farmer.
My dad, Albert Gaston, was born and raised here and was farming when he met and married my mom, Jean. My parents farmed hogs, cattle, wheat, corn, soybeans and watermelons when I was a child. In 1978 Hurricane Fredrick destroyed their hog facilities and farming profits were at an all time low. We had a couple western pleasure horses but soon my dad turned to horse racing. We always had oats and corn so he started making custom horse feed in a feed grinder. After national success with our race horses other owners took notice and wanted that special mix, so in 1980 Albert and Jean started Gaston Farm and Feed. We sold feed out of their barn and had a few horse supplies in their garage for several years.
I was raising baby calves and working on the farm when I met and married Lee Davis in 1988. He worked in construction but had a passion to farm. We started a family. A couple years later, the few pigs we had turned into a full blown farrow to finish hog operation that grew to a couple thousand hogs. This became G&D Hog Farm, a business with my parents and brother, Poncho. In 1997 we were Alfa’s Outstanding Young Farm Family in the Pork Division.
But I always wanted a farm/feed store so we bought out the family hog business and feed mill in 1998. We immediately started construction on a new store and repairs on the existing feed mixing facilities. In December 1999 we opened our store as G&D Farms, Inc. I kept the Gaston “G” in our business name to honor my family history. In just a few years we expanded our store and added a larger warehouse.
In 2008 we bought our second store in Grove Hill, AL hiring the existing manager, Adam Anderson, and his wife, Jessica. This is more of an outdoors store being closer to the rivers and Black Belt hunting. In 2016 we expanded this store with a large warehouse and showroom floor that focuses more on hunting and fishing. In 2021 the Outdoors store needed more feed space again, so a new 6,000 sf warehouse was built.
As the hog, horse and cattle industry has changed over the years we have diversified into making more feeds, including deer feed (Rack Attack), chicken feed while still making our horse blends and cattle feeds. Lee and my dad started back into some grain farming and we now grow soybeans and wheat that we use in our feeds.
Our Tanner Williams location feed mill and warehouse facilities are now over 24,000 square feet. In 2022 we increased our on site farm grain storage to over 60,000 bushel to store and buy more locally grown grain.
We are a family business and both of our children work here. Randy is the Warehouse Manager and Lorrie is our Sales Manager.
Come see that we appreciate the opportunity to take care of all our customers and their animals.
Starla
Albert Gaston
Albert Gaston, 1946
Albert and Starla, 1969
Lee Davis, 1988
Lorrie and Randy
Starla and Lee Davis
Lorrie and Randy
Randy, Starla, Lee and Lorrie