Veal?

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shaz

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Any of you guys ever process a calf for veal? If so, what age & weight and was it worth doing? What kind of cuts did you get? Given that calves are worthless and corn is through the roof veal may be an option to get rid of heifers that lack potential.

Your thoughts?
 
I barely remember back about 40 years ago when dairy bull calves were worth nothing. we took some to the local locker for veal meat at a couple weeks old. decided the cost for processing was not worth the amount of meat. my neighbor took 3 calves to the sale barn in the back of his pick-up with a sign that said "calves free for the taking" and went inside to eat breakfast. came back out to find 8 calves in the back of his truck.
 
I barely remember back about 40 years ago when dairy bull calves were worth nothing. we took some to the local locker for veal meat at a couple weeks old. decided the cost for processing was not worth the amount of meat. my neighbor took 3 calves to the sale barn in the back of his pick-up with a sign that said "calves free for the taking" and went inside to eat breakfast. came back out to find 8 calves in the back of his truck.
I knew a dairy farmer who put a little pen at the end of his driveway. Bull calves in the pen and a free sign. Next morning the calves had nearly doubled.
 
I got into raising dairy calves at the end of that worthless calf period. The first ones I got were $25 bulls and heifers. They went up consistently until the dairies I was getting them from were asking $150 or more for bulls and as much as $350 for heifers. On the market at the stockyards calves were bringing as much or more than $250 and $400 or more for heifers. Then fast forward another few years and the heifers value had dropped again, but by that time I was not raising them anymore.
Haven't heard of anybody selling actual veal calves, except my mother said when she was a child they raised a couple calves at a time on nurse cows and sold them around 250 lbs.
 
Are you talking Dairy or Beef calves being worthless pricewise? Baby beef Calves here are going for $300/$400 for 3 day old calves, $25 to $150 for 3 day old dairy calves, depending on the amount of calves and the quality of calves that your buying.
 
Are you talking Dairy or Beef calves being worthless pricewise? Baby beef Calves here are going for $300/$400 for 3 day old calves, $25 to $150 for 3 day old dairy calves, depending on the amount of calves and the quality of calves that your buying.
I have no idea what they are worth now, at the time I was told they were worthless was probably 20 years ago and that was dairy calves.
 
Ok, that makes sense. Since then they have been up and down in price, just like the rest of the cattle. 20 year's ago I had a guy offer to give me a bag of milk Replacer and a calf, if I wanted it, unfortunately I wasn't set up for it, and I didn't know a thing about raising them.
 
I raised veal calves about 40 yrs ago. Holstein bull calves off a dairy I milked on. Sold best at 300-350 lbs back then. True milk fed although they were not fully "white veal" because they did get eat a little of the straw I bedded with and did get a little hay the last few weeks to keep them from scouring from the milk. Fed at least a 5 gal bucket milk twice a day. 3-4 months old.
True white veal is strictly milk fed... the white is due to lack of iron in their system.. which they get from any kind of feed other than milk.
A calf off a beef cow would not be true white veal since they start to try eating other stuff young just from copying "mom". More of the "rose veal".... still very good and tender if you like meat that has little flavor to it. Veal is very mild tasting. The big deal about it is that it is tender and easy to prepare in any type recipe.
 

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