# Raw milk safety measures



## SkizzlePig (May 14, 2006)

So, I've recently discovered the wonderful world of raw milk. Finally, I can enjoy milk again without the lactose intolerance nonsense. I'm not asking "is raw milk safe" ('cause it can be), I'm asking raw milk producers what steps do you go through to ensure your milk is safe.

I'd like to start planning to milk for raw milk annnnd I want to do it right.


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## BlackWillowFarm (Mar 24, 2008)

It really is a wonderful world unknown to most.

In a nutshell:

First thing is make sure the cow is healthy and disease free. Tested, vaccinated or whatever is required in your state to be sure she's healthy by those standards. Next make sure she's healthy by veterinary standards.

Keep her clean and dry before milking, use a pre and post dip and make sure your equipment is clean and sanitized. Chill the milk quickly in clean, dry jars. Keep it cold.


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## SkizzlePig (May 14, 2006)

Thanks for the rapid reply, Carla. What dip do you use on the teets?

My DW and I are super excited. We can now join the rest of the world in the cereal aisle.


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## BlackWillowFarm (Mar 24, 2008)

I used Iodine until it doubled in price, now I'm trying a peroxide based dip. I also use a sanitizing teat wash before I milk. It comes in a gallon jug and dilutes with water.

Good to know you're lactose intolerance improved with raw milk. Once you switch over to the real thing it'll be hard to go back.

Have you visited the Keeping a Family Cow forum yet? I think you'd like it there.


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## Awnry Abe (Mar 21, 2012)

In no particular order:

A) keep the cow healthy
B) keep the milk clean
C) handle the milk properly

None are complicated.


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## Awnry Abe (Mar 21, 2012)

For teat dip, I pre-wash the teats with Basic-H and post dip with an iodine based dairy teat dip. I also use a blue colored teat dip that I buy from TSC (when I don't have the iodine).


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## arnie (Apr 26, 2012)

I have a seamless stainless steel bucket and milk by hand in a clean straw covered stall ; my healthy cow has been here for five years . i use some warm water with a little dawn dish soap and terry cloth to wash her udders . as she is eating her grain ration i turn the calf into suck on one side i milk her on the other . i have a milk strainer with a fine brass screen i pour the milk through into a glass jar . that's it . wash every thing in warm soapy water and turn up in a dish strainer to air dry . this is the method that works for me . raiseing the calf for beef


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## Wendy (May 10, 2002)

I milk goats, much better than cows!  Just kidding!!

I shave udders & clip back any long hair near it. Wipe the udder with babywipes, dry with a paper towel. I wear latex gloves when milking & use hand sanitizer between each goat. Squirt the first couple of squirts onto a paper towel & check for anything unusual, like flakes or lumps. I milk into a stainless steel pail with a half moon lid. I dip after with iodine. Get the milk into the house, strain it into a stainless steel stockpot, & sit it in a sink of ice water to get it chilled quickly. Once chilled I put into glass milk bottles. Milk tastes much better from glass. I wash everything with soapy water by hand & spray with bleach water & let drip dry.


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## big rockpile (Feb 24, 2003)

arnie said:


> I have a seamless stainless steel bucket and milk by hand in a clean straw covered stall ; my healthy cow has been here for five years . i use some warm water with a little dawn dish soap and terry cloth to wash her udders . as she is eating her grain ration i turn the calf into suck on one side i milk her on the other . i have a milk strainer with a fine brass screen i pour the milk through into a glass jar . that's it . wash every thing in warm soapy water and turn up in a dish strainer to air dry . this is the method that works for me . raiseing the calf for beef


 I do the same but I have put two Calves on one side, wean them then wean another before drying her up.

Calves do much better than on Milk Replacer.

big rockpile


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## AngusLover (Jan 12, 2014)

I'd recommend reading this book.
View attachment 22852
It walks you threw everything you could possibly want to know. Tips, trick, who's, what's, and why's. 
I read about it via the Keeping a Family Cow forum (were raising a couple nurse/milk cows).
I got mine on my ipad via Amazon Kindle Store but it's for sale in hard back also.
I'm so glad I got it. Between the book and tips via this forum and the KFC forum I'm feeling pretty confident I can safely drink our raw milk in the future.


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

Everybody is on with there info. The two things we always had to watch was lumps in the milk from mastitis and the smell on onion.It's pretty basic. One thing that was not mentioned is "stripping" the teats. This is done at the end of the milking. It is a method to remove that last little bit from the utter.It is higher in butter fat/cream and adds to the value of the milk,and protects the utter from contracting infections , and trains the utter to put out more milk.
It's all pretty basic.

Wade


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Complete milking, at least twice daily. Watch for mastitis. When it gets bad, it won't pass through the milk filter.You can relieve mastitis by keeping her milked out every couple hours for a few days. I would test the cow for brucellosis, tuberculosis, Johnes and campylobacter. Then test the milk from time to time for salmonella, e coli, listeria and campylobacter.


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## Westwood (May 13, 2002)

Basic teat dip. 1/4 cup of clorox to 1 gallon of water. Iodine is corrosive to living tissue.


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## farmmaid (Jan 13, 2003)

Like Wendy, I milk goats (40+ years). A good doe will give you a gallon a day. Two does, bred right, will give you milk all year long. Goats: less "foot print" on the land, cheaper to keep, very personable, kids to sell and put in the freezer, shorter gestation period, less investment.....just saying....Hi Wendy, hope ankle is doing better.


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## JulieLou42 (Mar 28, 2005)

.My Milking Steps:

1. Hitch her someplace; I use my truck in our gravel driveway
2. Hose her down to get off as much soil as possible, especially her bag... before taking her in where she's milked.
3. Hitch her to stanchion on thick, rubber restaurant kitchen mats...stanchion in garage, on concrete...very washable afterwards if/when necessary!
4. While she eats her grain ration in front of her, wash her bag with the warm, bleach or vinegar and water mix in plastic bucket using a 16" square, white towel...as many of them as needed to get all the mud off of her, if need be. I always take four towels with me.
5. Milk into a sterilized, stainless steel bucket of whatever size you need for her output.
6. Take inside and strain that through a stainless steel milk strainer with filter [bought at feed store] built for the purpose [check Lehman's catalog, if unavailable elsewhere]
7. Funnel into sterile glass [dishwashers can do that for you] jars...I use gallon sized.
8. Chill at 34 degrees F. within 40 minutes of milking and see that it STAYS at that temp; milk may still be good-tasting in 10-14 days at that temp.
9. If there are further concerns about the safety of your milk, get some grapefruit seed extract from a health food store and use 1 drop of that per cup of milk...I've never pasteurized any of the milk, and never gotten any illnesses from it using this method.


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## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

I, too, milk large Nubian dairy goats. I have 3 milkers and 2 of them will easily give a gallon of milk a day (after they wean their 3 kids).

I always use "Udder Wash", which is a type of Iodine that gets diluted, to wash *my hands with* prior to milking each doe. Then I use this same wash to wash the doe's udder and teats. Then I squirt out a little from each teat before I start putting the milk in my milking pan. After milking I use a spray (forgot the name but got it from Hoeggers) and aim it up into the teats, leaving it. Then in comes the next doe to milk.

The milk is immediately carried into the house where it is strained (I use solid white paper towels.) into glass containers (with lids) and placed in my extra cold refrigerator. This is what I do throughout the summer until my collection of milk is larger than I can use. When I see I'm getting too much milk, I bring the milk into the house, strain it into a large pot and turn the burner on low. Then I simmer that milk, stirring often, until it is reduced at least by half. (This is my "condensed milk"!) I then place this condensed milk into ziplock freezer "bags", stand them upright in my freezer tray until frozen, then take them out to the large freezer for winter use. (I do not milk during winter months.)

The important thing to remember, along with what I've mentioned above, is to make sure the goats are healthy with healthy udders.

Julie, what does that grapefruit seed extract do?


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

JulieLou42 said:


> .My Milking Steps:
> 
> 1. Hitch her someplace; I use my truck in our gravel driveway
> 2. Hose her down to get off as much soil as possible, especially her bag... before taking her in where she's milked.
> ...


I just read this over and actually everything you said is quite correct. It amuse's me to think how much things have changed in my lifetime! Please don't take this wrong but,If you would have told someone this 50 years ago,they would have laughed you right out of the county!No one then would have even considered going through all that to milk a goat,or a cow for that matter! My times have changed!

Wade


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## arnie (Apr 26, 2012)

1shotwade said:


> I just read this over and actually everything you said is quite correct. It amuse's me to think how much things have changed in my lifetime! Please don't take this wrong but,If you would have told someone this 50 years ago,they would have laughed you right out of the county!No one then would have even considered going through all that to milk a goat,or a cow for that matter! My times have changed!
> 
> Wade


I agree 50 years ago my grand parents had a spring house where they stored the milk in crock jars skimming the cream off for butter to sell, and feeding the skim milk to the pigs , whole milk for drinking was rarely kept in the fridge more than 1 day being replaced with fresh .. unless the cow was extreamly dirty a dish rag and a little slightly soapy water was all the cleaning a cow needed .often in fair weather with a calm tame cow she was milked in the yard without any grain . living on the same land eating plants from the same soil drinking ,the same water as you do; your cow has been exposed to the same germs /bacteria as you and your other livestock and will develop antibodies in her immune system that will protect you just as she would protect her calf ..I still use this same milking method, except this spring i'v switched from a cow to a dairy goat .


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## willow_girl (Dec 7, 2002)

I always milked into a pail loosely covered with muslin. (Don't pull it tight like a drum, or the milk will hit the cloth and bounce off -- leave a little slack.) It will keep flies from drowning in the bucket in the summertime, or the occasional flake of dried poop from falling in.

But I always pasteurized my milk, too. Bought a home unit on eBay for about $20 ... tested it with a candy thermometer to make sure it was coming up to temperature. It had a 2-gallon metal insert with a metal lid ... when it was done, I'd set it in the bathtub and run cold water over the top and down the sides to chill it fast, then wipe it dry and stick in the fridge. The wide-mouthed top made it easy to skim off some of the cream once it had settled out, then I'd funnel the rest into ordinary clean milk jugs. 

Made a lot of butter and ice cream in those years. That was a good time!


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## arnie (Apr 26, 2012)

may I wish for for your good years to continue for you Ms. willow girl . I two at one time worried about pasturizeing ; and bought an antque porciline Montgomery wards machine really nice top of the line off ebay the shipping cost as much as it did; but other than a test run never used it .


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## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

I wash the bucket between milkings. If there is dirt on the udder I brush it off. If there is mud on the udder, I wash it with plain water. I strain the milk thru a fine mesh sieve if it is for the house and put it in a clean glass jar then refrigerate. If you get bad bacteria in milk you WILL taste it as it will taste bad and sour quickly. Really no need to complicate matters or put yourself thru a lot of extra work. Now, if I were selling milk shares, I'd probably do a little extra just to make sure the customer was happy, but I've not noticed any problem with the milk that we drink.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Some forms of bacteria, in high enough concentrations, can be detected by taste. Some forms of bacteria or in low enough concentrations will not be detected by taste. Refrigeration does not kill bacteria, just slows the multiplication. Low bacterial count and rapid refrigeration are two elements to the multi faceted process of producing healthy milk.


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## JulieLou42 (Mar 28, 2005)

motdaugrnds said:


> I, too, milk large Nubian dairy goats. I have 3 milkers and 2 of them will easily give a gallon of milk a day (after they wean their 3 kids).
> 
> I always use "Udder Wash", which is a type of Iodine that gets diluted, to wash *my hands with* prior to milking each doe. Then I use this same wash to wash the doe's udder and teats. Then I squirt out a little from each teat before I start putting the milk in my milking pan. After milking I use a spray (forgot the name but got it from Hoeggers) and aim it up into the teats, leaving it. Then in comes the next doe to milk.
> 
> ...


GSE/grapefruit seed extract is an antibiotic used for many different issues. I haven't the memory to explain it all, so just google/search engine it, and you'll find plenty.


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## willow_girl (Dec 7, 2002)

Haha, I noticed I posted in this thread back in March. Sure didn't expect then that I'd be milking another cow. Here is the setup I referred to earlier:

I take along a bigger container to pour the milk into as the little one fills up.

I wash the filter cloths right along with the buckets and hang them up to dry between milkings.


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## Vahomesteaders (Jun 4, 2014)

We get all our raw milk from minonite neighbors. It is great! We all had dairy intolerances until we started with this. We also get our cheese and yogurt from them. No vaccines no meds just good ol grassfed and their farm processed grains. No gmos or pesticides. They have been doing it 27 years without incident. And we have had no problems at all.


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## Awnry Abe (Mar 21, 2012)

willow_girl said:


> Haha, I noticed I posted in this thread back in March. Sure didn't expect then that I'd be milking another cow. Here is the setup I referred to earlier:...


Strawberry ice cream I get. I can imagine the chocolate. But how do you get the strawberry and chocolate to separate from the vanilla?


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## reneedarley (Jun 11, 2014)

How about this sieve I saw in a museum the other day?


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