New River Cottage series!

[Hilary B]

Sorry!I still don't get it!
To me you can't on one hand condem farmers that,supposedly through lack of funds,rear indoor chickens yet on the other hand condone indoor reared calves!(and whether or not he said he condoned it or not,the mere fact that he was prepared to butcher it,cook it & convince many to buy it,in my eyes he was condoning it!)
Yes,I know the conditions shown on the programme were a zillion times better than the appalling ones still used across the globe,but it's still not natural conditions for the cow!Just because it's better doesn't mean it's right...the "freedom food" barns that some farmers are using now are infinitely better than the atrocious factory farms,yet I don't see Hugh eating,nor really accepting those...nor would I want to!
And why are cocks born to egg farmers any different to bull calves born to a dairy farmer?
Sorry,but if you're going to get sentimental over a calf,then you should also a chook!

The cockerel chicks under discussion could NEVER be grown into viable eating fowl, even by the most horrifically intensive system going, the calves CAN be effectively reared. It's a matter of wastage as well as conditions.
It isn't 'natural' to farm AT ALL, so everything is a matter of degree.
The other matter is that the sheer number of chooks involved dilutes the sentimental bit considerable. There are probably HUNDREDS of those chicks for every dairy bull calf.
BTW, I am still not about to buy veal. If they can be reared to 7 months or so as 'rose' veal, they could then be turned out to grass and kept another 20 months to make perfectly adequate beef, as used to be done not so long ago (see other post), and the calves shown were actually NOT so very 'pure dairy' in type. Some of them looked to be beef-crosses, which DO make good beef!

[Alison]

I have personally visited the farm from where the veal I buy is reared and am friends with the farmer couple who run it. They are a proper mixed farm and sell organic, unpasturised milk locally to where they farm. In their case I know the conditions they are raised in and the fact that the calves are most definitely a by product of their dairy arm. They also raise some bull calves for beef but would not have sufficient space to be able to rear all the veal calves to this size and I feel it is a much better option to support their veal production rather than leave them to shoot the calves or sell them on to somebody who who not care as much about their livelihood.