Meet Cynthia Capers, Tennessee trauma nurse turned poultry farmer

Cynthia Capers never thought that she would be a farmer. As an inner-city girl from Chicago and a self-proclaimed “diva,” it didn’t seem likely. 

Even though she went on to become a trauma nurse and clinical researcher, she always felt something pulling her to the land. That dates back to the first time she saw a baby chick at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago when she was a girl.

Then, 20 years ago, Capers answered that call. She had just moved to Nashville with her kids when she found the perfect property in Pegram, Tennessee, to start raising poultry.

The house was ridden with bats, and no one had lived there in years. But she took her chances. 

“When I walked out toward the back of the property, with all the trees and the beauty, I said, I think I need to be here,” she said on Tuesday’s episode of This is Nashville.

Soon, it was hers.

Cynthia Capers Heniscity Farm

One of the many coops on Heniscity Farms.

“By, I would say, intervention of the ancestors. … The property was going to be sold as part of an estate, and the executor of the state decided to hold the property until I was able to buy it,” she said

Capers’s ancestors play a significant role in this career and lifestyle change. She never knew her family history, but after doing some research into it for her mother’s side, she found out through old Census data that many of her ancestors were farmers in the 1800s. This struck her. 

“I felt like (my ancestors) came and said, ‘We’ve been waiting for somebody to find us,’” she said. “‘We’ve been waiting for you. Somebody. Because we never wanted to really leave the farm, and we had to leave the farm. And here you are, bringing us back to it.’”

After buying the property, she named it Heniscity Farm and started raising poultry. Now she’s a full-time farmer, who wakes up every day between 3 and 5 a.m. 

“There’s a thousand things to do,” she said. “There’s never nothing to do.” 

Cynthia Capers Heniscity Farm

This is Cynthia Capers’s view most days on Henicity Farm since she rises before the sun to care for her chickens and other birds.

It’s not easy – especially since Heniscity Farm is largely overseen just by Capers and her protégé Ashley Beard, who just started helping out on the farm about two months ago. 

Even though she was raised in Nashville’s suburbs, Beard always wanted to try a life on the farm. Now, it’s her reality. 

“They’re my babies,” she says, referring to the ducks who quack as they watch her walk past. There’s one she calls “Mama Mallard.”

With over 30 species of birds on the farm, Beard spends a lot of time collecting eggs — sometimes up to 100 in one day. 

It’s a lot of hard work. On days when Beard’s discouraged, Capers reminds her of everything that has come to fruition in just a few months. That always helps. 

“After I first started coming here, the eggs started flowing like gold,” she said. “[Capers] was like, ‘Yeah, that’s because you’ve been keeping them on a consistent schedule and making sure they have clean water.’”

“That’s actually really cool to see,” Beard continues. “Even just you being consistent with something, what can come out of it. It’s helped me mentally, and it’s helped me emotionally, because it’s the discipline that comes with it.”