“Grandma didn’t want us to have anything to do with ranching,” says Nancy Prebilich of Gleason Ranch, throwing open the door to an aging dairy barn that’s stood on the family property for more than 40 years. Without flinching she wades into a half inch of muck that backed up in the pig stall last night — adding “snake drains” to her ever-growing to-do list — and grabs a squealing piglet from underneath its 350 pound mom.
“We had the passion for it,” she says, snuggling the little pink bundle, “but not the permission.” At just 34, Prebilich — who holds a degree in international theater and grew up off the farm — may seem an unlikely candidate for saving not only her family’s Bodega ranch, but for a way of life that she was actively discouraged from.
But returning to the land is a dream that’s becoming increasingly appealing to generations of people who’ve lost touch with the simpler rural life. The reality,  however, is not always so rosy.
For the past nine months, she’s been pasture-raising heritage breeds of chicken, pork and turkeys along with grass-fed beef on a few hundred acres of family land, and it’s been a steep learning curve. “We’ve be trained out of desperation and urgency,” says Prebilich.
Chickens, however, are the focus of the operation with nearly 5,000 French La Rouge chickens on the property, from chicks to 3-month-olds ready for market. Going a step beyond organic, free-range poultry, Nancy’s mission is to raise the best-tasting chickens you’ve ever eaten, with an old-fashioned texture and flavor flavor your grandparents might recognize. Each week she receives 500 to 700 chicks, raises them on the farm for 11 weeks and sends them to Fulton Processing (in Forestville) before selling them at local grocery stores and farm markets.
What sets her apart from other poultry producers: Prebilich claims to be the only large-scale commercial producer of 100% local, pasture-raised chickens in Sonoma County. What’s the difference? Free-range chickens are, by definition, given access to outdoor pens, unlike conventionally raised chickens. But the chickens don’t always take up the offer to head outside.
Gleason Ranch cluckers spend most of their lives in specially-built “chicken tractors” — specialized pens without bottoms that allow the birds to eat bugs, grass and other natural things. The pens are moved daily to new pecking grounds. A llama stands guard against coyotes, though predators are always a threat. “Organic and free range doesn’t necessarily mean what people think it means. People have auto-criteria they ask me every time, but once people are educated that these are real animals, not genetically modified lab rats on two legs, they start wrapping their heads around it,” she said.
In only nine months, the slow-growing chickens have gained plenty of fans, including the notice of the French Laundry and local meat purveyor, Sonoma Direct along with early customers like Patrick Tafoya of the Bodega Bay Lodge’s Duck Club Restaurant, the Sonoma Mission Inn and John Ash & Co.
“Quite simply some of the best products I ever have had the pleasure of working with. The care with which these animals are raised is evident in every bite,” said Tafoya. “They grow the best chicken I’ve ever tasted.” Adds Bruno Tyson, executive chef of the Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, “It reminded me of the chicken we ate at home while growing up.”
Everyone in the family — her mom and dad, sister, 11-year-old nephews and six-year-old niece — chip in, working without pay to move chicken pens, feed and water the animals, attend to the chicks and maintain the decaying buildings. Nancy also hand-delivers much of the meat to markets and restaurants.
The Prebilich/Gleasons are one of the most established agricultural families in Sonoma County.  Her great-great-grandfather William Gleason founded Gleason Dairy on the Bodega Coastline in the 1860s. The family continued to operate the dairy, which moved to its current location just east of Bodega in 1912, until the 1960s when competition from bigger milk operations forced its closure. Grandma Gleason held onto the ranch for more than 50 years as the barns and outbuildings decayed, deterring her children and grandchildren from joining the family business — not realizing that the time Nancy and her sister spent on the property were some of the most memorable of their lives.
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