yes, I have considered that. and every source I can find puts dairy cows at about 3 years of production, calving for the first time at about 2 years old.
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it’s possible your operation was not average, and most dairy cows only live 5 years.
anecdotes are not data.
hardly any dairy calves end up as veal.
the math
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/DataFiles/48685/milkcowsandprod.xlsx?v=1413.4
thousands_of_head_of_cows = 9448.0 actual_cows = 1000 * thousands_of_head_of_cows annual_male_calves = .5 * actual_cows veal_weight_of_calves_in_pounds = 260 annual_veal_production_in_millions_of_pounds = 58 annual_percentage_of_bobby_calves_that_become_veal = ((annual_veal_production_in_millions_of_pounds * 1000000) / (veal_weight_of_calves_in_pounds * annual_male_calves))*100 print(annual_percentage_of_bobby_calves_that_become_veal)4.722204129486094
a dairy cows life span is like 5 years
most dairy calves are brought to full weight before slaughter.
i present the math below