Veal and Beef on the Homestead

A FRIEND of mine who likes to eat once chose to spend his vacation at a Western Dude Ranch. He figured that for once he'd get all the tender juicy steaks and roast beef he could eat.

When he came back I asked, "How were the steaks?"

"Oh, good . . good," he answered - but I detected an odd note in his voice.

He explained. "Funny thing about that ranch - even though they had a couple of hundred steers on the place they got their beef from Chicago. . ."

If a Western Ranch specializing in the production of beef cattle doesn't even raise beef for its own use then what right has a homesteader to think that he can profitably do so?

On one or two acres you probably won't go very deeply into beef production But even on two acres if you are keeping a cow you'll find yourself raising beef in the shape of veal. Veal, as you know, is calf meat.

Once a year your family cow, like all dairy cows, has a calf. In the ordinary dairy, bull calves and heifer calves from low producing cows generally are slaughtered as veal at an early age. Often, before they are two weeks old because the dairyman does not want to bother feeding them or providing the milk they need. This early butchering is one reason why more people don't like veal. Early butchered veal hasn't anywhere near the quality of eight week veal. The best veal is from milk fed calves about eight weeks old. And this top-quality veal is the kind that the part-time farmer can easily produce because when the family cow freshens and starts producing 12, 14 or 16 quarts of milk a day a few quarts can be fed to the calf and the family still will have enough for drinking, cream, butter - and enough for cheese and chickens too.

Feeding The Calf For Veal

The calf should either stay with the cow for the first three or four days to suckle the first milk, the colostrum, or the cow should be milked and the milk given to the calf. If the latter procedure is followed, I think you will find that the calf will learn to drink from a pail more easily. We find it very difficult, for instance, to let a young goat kid nurse and then attempt to teach it to drink from a pan.

The weight of the calf will determine how much he should be fed. If allowed to stay with his dam, he will consume small amounts frequently. This is ideal, but you cannot favor him in this way if he is separated from the cow. On the average, feed eight to ten pounds (4 to 5 qts.) of milk per day, generally one-half in the morning, one-half in the evening. Milk should be at body temperature, and pails kept very clean. Give the calf a dry pen, free from drafts. If he is not hungry, miss a feed rather try to make him eat. As age increases, gradually increase the amount.