Hope Refuge Farm is a small, family farm, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains of southeast Kentucky.  We’re breeding and raising Irish Dexter cattle, Jersey/American Miniature Jersey, and a cross of Dexter and Mini Jersey, known as Belfair, Irish Jersey or the trademark name Belmont.  Our goal is to produce high quality, truly dual-purpose, purebred Dexter breeding stock, and to raise and train small family milk cows for sale at an affordable price.

Newswanger family (L to R): Brenton, Hannah, (behind her) "adopted" wanderer Nick, Joel, Jeff, faithful doggy-friend Bandit, and Kim.

Our family – Jeff, Kim, sons Brenton & Joel and daughter Hannah – have always loved the country life. We’ve spent years gardening organically, raising chickens for our own meat & eggs, and enjoying our Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horses.  Then we decided we needed a mini-sized family milk cow to produce our own “junk”-free milk & dairy products.  But when we realized how difficult it is to find said cow, we decided to develop a breeding program to help provide family milk cows for others with the same interest.  We’ve focused mainly on the Dexter, because they’re more available and not as expensive as the Mini Jersey, and there’s a well-established network through the Dexter associations.  We had one Mini Jersey cow, until she died, and currently have a Belfair cow who is a daughter of hers in our herd.  We will be working on building the Jersey and Belfair parts of our herd over the next few years.  We also raise most of our Dexter bull calves as beef steers for our own all-natural, grassfed beef, to share with friends & family.

What’s in a Name?

Hope Refuge:  This expresses the ultimate purpose of our family farm.  Our lives have become filled with other people who are in need of a place of security, an emotionally safe home, a stable family…who need hope in their lives.  The guest wing of our house enables us to take in such “wandering souls”, as we’ve come to call them, and give them the family support they need to get some firm footing & direction for their lives.

NewHope:  Our herd-name expresses our desire for our breeding program.  It is a combined abbreviation, New from Newswanger and Hope from Hope Refuge, however we do want our cows to be a source of new hope in certain ways.  As more people become aware of the atrocities in our food supply and begin to raise more of their own food, we believe that a small-sized, truly dual-purpose cow can give them hope in their effort to be self-sufficient and provide healthy food for their family.  We also believe that these environmentally-friendly, small, family farms are our only hope of a cleaner, healthier world. 

Our breeding program goal is to produce high quality, functional cattle true to their breed’s original form & purpose.  Since there are quite a few Dexters & Mini Jerseys out there who don’t quite measure up to what they were originally intended to be, we want our animals to help restore the credibility that these breeds deserve.  We want people to know that there is hope for these cows to be more than expensive, cute lawn ornaments.

So, Welcome to Hope Refuge Farm!  Make yourself at home!