ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with economic aspects of production. The spring-born calving suckler herd is essentially a low cost, low output enterprise and specialist buildings designed to house the suckler cow cannot be justified on economic grounds alone. I. Bremner and others have studied the iron requirements of the veal calf. They concluded that a milk replacer diet containing 25 mg/kg of added iron was sufficiently high to prevent clinical anaemia unless the calf was severely deficient in iron at birth, but sufficiently low to ensure a satisfactory colour to the meat. Restriction of the food intake of calves in straw yards to the amount drunk by calves in crates offers the best prospect for improving food conversion efficiency in the system. Control of respiratory disease in veal units is particularly difficult because the large amounts of liquid in food, faeces and urine contribute to a high relative humidity.
