making the call

Earlier this week we had two enormous bull calves. Since the farm only gets paid about 3 dollars for a bull calf shipped to market, I decided that I would buy these ones and they would be my first veal calves. I have had the idea to try and raise pastured veal for a few years now, I even wrote a SARE grant proposal which I didn't get. But it seems like people are expressing much more interest in tender tasty calf than they are into happy hippy raw milk, so I am going ahead with the project, grant funding or not.

So after I snuggled them and pet them and fed them their mother's milk for the very first time, I went in the house and made the appointment to have them killed. You see, there is a shortage of slaughter facilities in Vermont. There are only 5 federally inspected facilities that do cows, so if you drag your feet getting your spot in the fall, no osso bucco for you.

Really, no osso bucco to sell to anyone else. There are some very good laws regarding butchering here - if you can sell the animal to someone while it is alive (or two someones if each wants half) you may have a licensed person come to your farm, kill the animal and then have it taken to a state inspected facility for it to be cut and wrapped (or the person can do it all themselves if they are so inclined). However, if you would like to sell your meat packaged at a store or to a restaurant, you need to have it killed and cut up at a federally inspected facility. A federally inspected facility has a list of requirements a mile long not the least of which being a federal inspector on the premises at all times when killing and butchering is taking place. The need for sanitary responsible slaughter houses that cater to small scale meat producers is a hot topic, as you might imagine.

I called one place that was booked up until January. However, I did find a place that seemed nice. It was run by a husband and wife team. They said they wanted the animals there by 7pm the night before so that they would have adequate water and rest before their unfortunate morning. I felt very weird after I made the appointment. These calves will have a much nicer life, brief as it is, than any bull calf sold at the auction (whose lives are much much briefer). However, to keep from getting too attached, I named them Parmesean and Scallopini.

And of course, if you'd like to pre-order any veal, please get in touch.