By Wendy Beswick

ALEXANDRIA — Ontario veal producer and market analyst for Ontario Veal Association, Kendra Keels tells farmers that good to fancy bob calves can still fetch upwards to $150. Yet, talk to any dairy producer and he will tell you horror stories of bull calves practically given away at auction. Somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

Livestock buyer Jerome Poirier from Alexandria knows his calves and he can find a home for the good ones. "If you have a good calf that weighs 90 pounds, you should get a decent price for him." he stated, "But it’s the young calves, 82, 85 pound two-day-old calves that have no market."

"If a farmer would take that 85-pound calf and put 10 pounds of milk into him, because they are all saying they have too much milk." Mr. Poirier claimed, "Hold him at least a week or ten days, and you will get $50 for him."

Mrs. Keels agrees. "If veal farmers could get a good supply of first rate calves, they would be willing to pay good money for them." she explained, "If you send a good calf at 7 to 10 days, with lots of colostrum and dry navel, you just eliminated a whole bunch of problems for me."

Yet, even with good quality trouble free calves available, Mrs. Keels acknowledges that competition for the calves has been reduced. "Normally we do very well in the fall months with veal pricing. We didn’t have that big jump this year and that really caused a lot of veal producers to lose too much money." she explained, "They have those four months to make enough to carry them for the year. So that reduces the number of people out there buying the bull calves."

Mr. Poirier verifies Mrs. Keels’ numbers. "I did the math with one of the big guys in Quebec and he told me that you could give him the calves and he still would not be making any money." Mr. Poirier said, "The bottom line is that Quebec is the only market left and they had their subsidy cut by more than half."

South Glengarry’s Rob McDonald acknowledges that tough business decisions are often forced upon the dairy man because of today’s economic climate. "It’s friggin’ sad, actually, if you get a cheque for $3 from the sale barn and you could have just as easily gotten a bill for $10." he complained, "It’s pretty damn sad that as a business you cannot justify sending these animals to auction."

Stirling’s Keith Donnan of Donnandale Farms concurs with Mr. McDonald. "Let’s put it this way, if you lose a bull calf to scours, you don’t cry anymore." he said pragmatically.

Where there was once a robust demand for veal, 2009 saw the door slam on the meat demand. Whether it was the impact of the economic recession, a reduced caloric intake of the aging baby-boom generation, or the changing eating trends of the Gen Y’ers, meat consumption has dropped.

"The strong Canadian dollar is severely hurting us on our exports, not only for veal, but the beef industry. That impacts the amount of protein available for people to buy." Mrs. Keels stated, "There is only so much protein people are going to eat when they go to the grocery store. They are not going to pay a whole lot more for veal when there is beef and pork at a reasonable cost."

Mr. Donnan confirms this fact. "I don’t know where the market for these calves went. There’s fewer of them being produced, ‘cause there are fewer producers with fewer cows producing the same amount of milk." he declared, "It’s not as if there’s a flood on the market or the dairy industry is growing or anything."