I guess Spring must be around the corner. On my way into town yesterday I spotted the first calf. Seems like they are a little late this year, but it is probably just that my memory is rather slipping. I did see one little calf, but it was still laying in the field. Soon there will be lots of the little fellows. I would love to be able to delude myself into believing that maybe this year they will be allowed to stay together, but you and I both know better than that. The best I can hope for is that some nice man will buy the calves and raise them to adulthood, but that is not happening. Until some one proves me wrong, I will know that these calves are born for veal.
I gave up eating veal many years ago when I learned how it is made. They take baby calves and put them in a very small space so they can not move. Then they are fed nothing but milk. This makes them very tender and it is the end result that matters, not how happy a baby calf's life is.
This is from wikipedia, in case you think I am dreaming this up.
Jump to Cruelty to calves - Calves are slaughtered as early as 2-3 days old (at most 1 month old) yield meat carcasses weighing from to 9 to 27kg. Formula-fed ("Milk Fed", "Special Fed" or "white") veal. Calves are raised on a fortified milk formula diet plus solid feed. The majority of veal meat produced in the US are from milk-fed calves.
I see stuff like this and I wonder why I am not a vegan. I never thought about this until I researched veal. My daughter raises cattle in Eastern Kansas and last year one of her cows gave birth and then died of milk fever leaving the calf to be bottle fed by my daughter until it was big enough to butcher. I could not, personally eat anything that I had grown to love, but her reasoning is it makes her happy raising the little calf and then makes her happy again when the calf feeds her. I guess this is why I have 8 geese out back that are so old they can hardly walk and I feed them every day. I spend $32.00 a month on goose food. That is a total of $384 a year. 8 geese dressed out would produce 24 pounds of meat. This is equal to $16.00 a pound. I have had then 14 years so that makes one pound of goose meat cost $224.
Beats hell out of me how I got on this tangent, but I am now a mathmetician! I do know I just wanted to share with you about the little calves. Farming is a hard life and I guess it takes a special breed to raise food to be eaten. I am not cut from that pattern, so I will go scramble an egg for breakfast. Years ago I did raise a couple pigs out back and that was some of the best pork I ever bit into. I was hard hearted back then, I think. Now I am old and I am a softie! I do kill centipedes if they dare to come in the house. I do not eat them.
Have a good day!
