Making Clean Raw Milk, Part 1: A Simple Guide for Small-Scale Dairies

Reader Contribution by Nick Zigelbaum
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The Importance of Testing Milk (Raw and Pasteurized) and Your Animals.

One big benefit of running the private and FDA-certified Bob-White Systems Dairy Lab is that we get to see what works and what doesn’t work to keep milk clean. “Clean,” for our purposes, means that it passesVermont’s Tier II Raw Milk Standards, which happen to be some of the most stringent in the country, more so than federally regulated pasteurized milk standards. At the lab we perform FDA-certified testing to ensure raw milk producers are compliant with Vermont’s standards. We also perform non-FDA certified tests for diagnostic services. That means we see all kinds of milk, with all kinds of problems, and we help producers troubleshoot many different issues.

Vermont’s Tier II Raw Milk Standards require that raw milk intended for retail sale pass four tests; Total Bacteria Count below 15,000 cfu/mL, Coliform Count below 10 cfu/mL, Somatic Cell Count below 225,000/mL (500,000/mL for goats), and no Antibiotic Residue found. “cfu/mL” stands for Colony-Forming Units per milliliter; bacteria form colonies, and this is the number of colonies per milliliter of milk. Antibiotic residue looks for traces of cow penicillin or other antibiotics that could affect people with antibiotic allergies and probably contribute to the creation of the notorious MRSAand other antibiotic resistant bacteria. Every state has it’s own set of regulations and laws regarding raw milk, more info can be found at the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and the map below.

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