[belfastchris45]

Hi all
Been reading here for sometime but need some help with prices and figures to see if it's worth the plunge. I have a small 2 acre field and looking to place 2 cafe / cows for the purpose of fattening for slaughter

The questions

What are people's thoughts on keeping the cafe for 8-10 months then slaughtering. Obviously it's not going the animal is not at it's full potentail, but would the cost offset food and winter housing ?  Thoughts

Would it be better to buy an older animal 12-18 months. What sort of price and bread would be best.  I am basically looking at what's the best bang for buck so to speak, while enjoying the animals also. The meat will only be used for friends and family not as any sort of business ex

What would the cost brake down be

Animal cost
Feed cost
Slaughter
Butcher
Vets
Travel.

Anything I have missed. What are people paying from start to finish. Is it good value for money ?  I have chickens which I love for eggs and some meat, but they don't cut it for the amount of red meat the family go throuh

Thanks for reading

Chris

[SallyintNorth]

You could look into buying dairy calves and bringing them on for rose veal.  Jersey bull calves fetch next to nothing at our marts.  I haven't eaten Jersey rose veal (yet) but I have eaten Jersey beef slaughtered at 18 months and it was tremendous.

Get any bull calves castrated, though - you don't want to be messing with adolescent bulls 

[sokel]

We are rearing 2 Jersey Bull Calfs for rose veal at the moment , I had tried it a couple of times before we went into this and it was really nice .

[belfastchris45]

Could be a good option. So how much meat in kg would you expect from rose veal. Also do all the same cuts on meat apply for rose as normal ?