Compassionate husbandry selling veal?
You may be wondering: why a farm that calls itself Reverence is espousing veal. We don’t and won’t sell baby pigs just so someone can fit them on their grill for a tiny smoke-out. So why do we think veal is a humane choice for a dairy?
First, our veal calves are adolescents and not babies. The animals we harvest as veal grow to 400 pounds and sometimes get 2/3 of the size of his mother, with whom he spent his whole life. He never had a stressful day, he was always with her until he was 5-6 months old and even after that got to spend time with her every day after milking. He ran with the cow herd, ate all the hay and grass he wanted, and nursed off his own dam. He had an idyllic life.
Our veal is literally a different animal from what you've heard or seen.
Technically, veal is simply a young beef animal who was never weaned. What that means in the industry is often ugly, and these animals are never offered real milk, allowed off a chain or out of a crate, and they are denied hay because it would not allow the meat it’s characteristic white color, which just means anemic. They are usually denied bedding of any kind, because they will eat it in a desperate attempt to find fiber to chew on, which is instinctual and the only way they can develop a normal rumen (one of their stomaches). Other things about their lives are not even fitting to recount.
The origins of veal are simpler and humbler, and like most things related to farming, practical. In order for a dairy cow to produce milk, she has to have a calf, ideally every year to keep her in good lactation. Some of the heifers (females) are kept or sold to grow into milk cows, of course, but not all of them, and very few bulls are needed to keep up reproduction. So that leaves a lot of “extra” calves, who have been bred to be efficient milk producers but for whom being a beef animal isn’t in their genetic job description. After they are weaned, dairy calves are notoriously slow and inefficient to gain weight.
Calves are a byproduct of producing milk, so if we drink milk or eat cheese, we are complicit in how these animals are raised and cared for (or not). Enter veal. A dairy bull calf will never be fatter than when he’s drinking milk. The protein- and fat-rich milk is the perfect food for a growing calf, just as God designed it. They gain weight fast and if we harvest them at the end of the season, before we have to start feeding stored (expensive) feed, we can capture the best part of their growth curve and close the loop on the dairy reproduction cycle. The vast, vast majority of dairies sell their calves at auction, just to focus on making milk. The calves go to unspeakable places, and it doesn’t have to be so.
Veal done right has a context, and we don't sell it outside of that context.
We are forging a path forward, providing an economically feasible way to produce a nutrient-rich food, while respecting the life of each animal, regardless of gender, born on the farm. Every animal we offer as veal had a name, a distinct personality, a mother who loved him and lived a normal bovine life. We think that matters. Yes, that makes that inevitable day more difficult. But eating always involves sacrifice, and the only question is whether we are aware of it, and thankful for it. Gratitude begets gratitude. Wendell Berry says there are no unsacred places, only sacred places and desecrated places. I believe the same is true for animals. There are no unsacred animals, only sacred animals and desecrated animals. To us, they are all sacred.
There are only a handful of producers in the country who make a product like this, and even among that elite group, ours still stands out for its ethos, integrity and culinary excellence.
Our veal is unlike any you've ever encountered and represents the epitome of compassionate husbandry and wholesome nutrition.
Raised on our verdant pastures, these veal calves grazed and were loved by their mothers and had an idyllic life. We believe in honoring the life of each animal, and this ethos shines through in every tender cut of our rose veal. This animal had a name and was loved. I realize that is far more intimate than you've maybe gotten with your meat before, but we believe that the only real food comes out of this kind of intimacy. This is how we think food should be done, and the purpose of Reverence Farms is that we share the food that we raise to the highest standards for our own family with you. In that way, we've never grown out of our homestead roots.
Buying meat supports our ability to produce real milk.
