A LOWER North dairy farm has found a way to find extra value in their milk by using it to produce veal.
Father and son Neville and James Krieg, Kangaroo Flat, use all the milk produced on-farm from their Jersey herd to feed Holstein bull calves, which are then sold as white veal.
The idea began about seven years ago, when they began reintroducing dairy back onto the farm.
Neville had grown up with a dairy stud but his career initially led him off-farm, so they sold all the cows in 1990.
As James got older, he wanted to have a cow on the property, so they were able to buy a house cow from the family's original Skyvale Jersey bloodlines.
Family history played a large part in their decision to milk Jersey cows.
They have sourced the bloodlines from the original Skyvale Jerseys, run by James' grandfather Theodore Krieg, and restarted the stud.
James said there was something special about knowing his grandfather ran Jerseys and he was milking some of the same bloodline.
But he also believed the extra creaminess of Jersey fat did contribute to the end product of white veal.
The desire for good animals was also behind the decision to operate a registered stud.
"When I get up in the morning, I want to look at and work with something that looks nice, so we like to breed good genetics," James said.
They milk twice a day on an old walk-through dairy, recommissioned after about 20 years of inactivity.
They run two Jersey bulls, one bought and one home-bred, with the better cows joined through AI.
"We decided we needed to do something with the milk, so we thought why not have Jersey cows and get more calves," James said. "The idea grew from there."
They source the bull calves from three local Holstein producers, buying them in at one to two weeks old, generally keeping them until they are about four months old.
The calves are fed a predominantly milk diet, supplemented by some hay.
The calves are grown to about 195 kilograms liveweight, which ends up about 100kg dressweight.
The calves are killed at Kapunda and sold direct to Bruce's Meats, Mitcham.
James said they have also been in discussions with a chef at a Barossa Valley restaurant about future opportunities.
They turn off two calves every fortnight, but are looking to expand that further.
James said they had grown slowly to this point but he believes they are at the point where expansion could speed up.
"We had to try and first figure out whether there was a market for the product," Neville said. "We had to produce enough of the product to see if people would like it."
James said it took some trial and error to work out the best way to grow the calves and to get the best end product.
Neville said the product worked in with their values of creating a sustainable product. He said a bobby calf would fetch little returns before they add value to it.
They also use straw to line the calf pens, which then becomes mulch for their own paddocks or is sold.
They grow all feed on the farm, growing cereals such as wheat, barley and some canola, as well as medic, ryegrass and oats for grain and silage on their 60-hectare farm.
As they work to build numbers, to meet the demand for milk, they have been keeping all heifers within the Jersey herd and have grown to 22 milkers.
Calves that grow beyond butcher weight are kept on-farm and then sold directly to consumers, as white veal, in quarters.
Neville said they worked out a budget for their end product, which includes a milk price of 50 cents a litre.
"I think most dairyfarmers would be happy with that," he said.