The Rural Voice, 2000-09, Page 19farm until they're processed. Since
death losses among white veal calves
aren't covered by insurance during
transportation, that's important.
In fact eliminating stress is a big
part of the Vander Neuts' game plan
and has sent them on a different path
than that generally accepted for veal
production. They've been advised
they should buy calves from dealers,
Bob says, but they've always found it
better to buy directly from farmers.
Dealers sort their calves so you get a
nice uniform lot, he says, but those
calves may have travelled a long
distance and been subjected to a good
deal of stress.
Instead they've chosen to go out to
the farms of about 60 dairy
farmers in the region, some of
whom they've been dealing with for
16 years. Two days a week Bob
strikes out to make the rounds,
picking up bull calves from the
farms. He can have them back and in
the barn in two or three hours, he
says, reducing stress. That has
reduced death loses for only 3.5 per
cent, a much lower rate than buying
calves from dealers which, Bob says,
was a losing situation for them.
He also buys some calves from
auction barns, some weeks buying
four or five calves, some, 25.
The uneven lots do mean a lot of
extra work and patience and that's
Tineke's department. Many of the
calves have been bottle fed at the
farm and she has to train them to
drink from buckets. They have
special shallow buckets that fit on the
pens.
Until three or four weeks of age
the calves are fed by weight with the
milk they receive being incremented
by a tenth of a litre.
The feeding involves another
method of taking advantage of an
unwanted product. Bob uses a tank
on an old stake truck to pick up
rejected milk from dairy farmers
throughout the area. While many
people think of inhibitors as the
reason for rejected milk, there can be
many reasons for a tank to be
rejected, he says. In one case a
farmer left something he'd been
using the clean the paddles in the
bulk tank and, since the tool was a
foreign object, the tank had to be
rejected.
Since they buy milk replacer by
the tractor -trailerload at a cost of
$40-$45 a bag, the milk helps shave
costs, but it does more, Bob says.
Milk replacer isn't necessarily a milk
product with some non -milk protein
used so when it's mixed with rejected
milk, it seems to soften the taste and
the calves like it.
The rejected milk isn't always
available and can only be kept about
a week in their cooler before it's no
longer usable but they average about
1,000 litres of whole milk a day
when it's available. And their feeding
regimen seems to work. With a feed
conversion of 1.7 to 1.75. it almost
matches chicken, Bob says.
The barn is divided into rooms,
much like a pork barn, and one room
is filled at a time as calves become
available. That room is then finished
and shipped as the calves hit the
desired market weight, generally at
19-20 weeks of age. Unlike pork,
however, the object isn't biosecurity.
With calves coming from up to 60
different farms, nearly every bug is
likely to come along at some time,
Bob says. When the room is cleaned
out, it is given a good washdown,
generally taking about two days.
The calves are kept in small
wooden pens, raised up off the
cement floors. Most of the
technology for raising milk -fed veal
comes from Europe but the Vander
Neuts have constructed their own
pens replacing oak used in Europe
with Ontario maple. The slats in the
bottom of the pen are a special
hardwood imported from Europe.
Pens could be made of plastic, Bob
says, but wood is warm and cheaper.
The four -litre pails that tit on the
outside of each of the 400 pens are
imported from Holland. They use a
shallow dish for calves up to four
weeks of age, moving to a deeper
pail as the calves get older. Bob
designed and built his own pail
cleaner because all the pails are
cleaned at least once a week.
Careful track is kept of the weight
of all the milk a calf gets from the
time it arrives to the time it leaves.
You have to know what your costs
are, Bob says, so you can know how
much you can afford to buy calves
for and not get carried away at
auctions. Though they haven't
ventured into the world of computers.
they keep careful records of each calf
and could virtually qualify for a
HACCP program right now even
though there's no quality control
program for veal.
Bob has built a large mixer to
combine milk with water and milk
replacer. There's a pump that can
transport the mixture by pipeline to
each of the rooms where a quick -
attach hose can be hooked on for
tilling the pails for older calves. Each
room can get a specific amount of
milk.
They feed as close as possible to
the 6:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. schedule.
Calves have a routine and their
digestive system works better if that
routine isn't disturbed. Tineke says.
Daily feeding requires about two
hours in the morning and two hours
in the afternoon. Other hours are kept
busy with buying and picking up
calves and rejected milk. They
operate the farm with only some part-
time help.
Though an overlooked area of
farming, milk -fed veal puts a lot of
money back into the dairy industry.
Bob points out. It takes about $300
worth of milk replacer to raise a calf
to market weight and that often
makes use of outdated powdered
milk. Add in the price of the calf and
it means each milk -fed calf
contributes nearly $500 to dairy.
Veal has also been good for the
Vander Neuts, now providing their
family income. Not only have they
nearly tripled their production of veal
calves, but they now have 200 acres
of land and have a cow -calf
operation. They bought the extra land
as an outlet for their liquid manure.
using the manure to fertilize hay.
ike most niche markets, there
are opportunities for only a
(limited number of producers.
You have to do your homework
before getting into the business. Bob
says. Last year their packer needed
many more calves but like most
markets, things can turn around
quickly.
For the Vander Neuts however.
milk -fed veal has provided the means
for another Canadian success story
for a man who came to Canada with
two suitcases to his name.0
SEPTEMBER 2000 15