[Past_VNE]

Hi all!<br><br>
I found a farm locally that does raw goat milk, yogurt, cheese, organic produce and meat.<br><br>
I called today and told her I wanted some milk and yogurt. I went out a little later to pick it up and was amazed at the farm's condition. It was piled with junk in the driveway, and the cool old barn was in, eh, moderate disrepair.<br><br>
Anyway, we go in a small tack-room-sized room and there is a 'dorm fridge' and a 1960s regular fridge. There is a stainless half-round double sink a counter. She gets an obviously reused plastic gallon milk jug out of the fridge, looks for a container to pour into, rinses out a glass half gallon bottle, fills it a little with a sudsy fluid and shakes it, rinses it again, pours in the milk and caps the bottle. Before rinsing it, the bottle was very water spotty, albeit not dirty.<br><br>
Now, maybe this is normal fare, as I have never seen <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/bag.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Bag">: where my milk comes from before.<br><br>
Anyway, since it's raw, I'm a little nervous about her keeping practices. Should I just drink it anyway?<br><br>
Oh, the yogurt was already packaged in a plastic container with a printed label.<br><br><img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/headscratch.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="headscratch">

 

[farmer mama]

Hmm, that sounds a little strange. I mean the junk pile and falling apart barn seems pretty standard, LOL, but the cleaniness seems to leave much to be desired. Maybe post on the NT thread in nutrition and good eating and see what the other raw milk drinkers think.

 

[zoooteacher]

My livestock vet and I were just talking about how horrid some people's set ups are. Goats don't mind junk ora little dirt, but it certainly isn't good for them. We dont sell our milk, but just for our consumtion, I always use VERY clean glass bottles, after straining our milk in a sterilized stainless steel strainer within 15 minutes of milking.

 

[Past_VNE]

Yeah, the looks of the place was just like my dad's horse farm/junk collection. That part didn't surprise me at all. Actually, the inside of her house was remarkably similar to my dad's home. LOL It also looked a lot like some of the other horse farms I have frequented. It's funny...I don't recall any middle of the road farms. Just impeccable ones and disasterously messy ones.<br><br>
Good idea, I'll post over there (but readers, comments are still welcome here!! <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/wink1.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="wink1"> )

 

[shannon0218]

I'd probably say no too, like someone else said, the junk pile doesn't bother me, but the way she's keeping the milk doesn't sound good to me. I don't like my milk in any plastic bottles or bags, I'm guessing the benefits of it being raw may be squashed by her keeping practices. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/smile.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="smile">

 

[mountain mom]

NTer here.<br><br>
I am with Shannon on this one.<br><br>
I would be concerned about safety.

 

[Past_VNE]

Would the yogurt be safer? I hate to waste anything, but don't want to get sick either!!<br><br>
I know I won't be going back, and the only reason I bought it is because I didn't want to offend her. <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="/img/vbsmilies/smilies/bag.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="Bag">:

 

[shannon0218]

Welllllll......the yogurt wouldn't concern me nearly as much.......but......I can say that cause I don't eat yogurt since growing it in grade 8 biology class <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/wink1.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="wink1">

 

[Arduinna]

Used to have about 30 goats and milked them and used their products. I wouldn't drink it mainly due to the reused milk jug. Just as plastic water bottles aren't to be continually reused due to bacteria issues neither should commercial plastic milk jugs. We stored our milk in a variety of containers, but I tried to store as much as I could in stainless steel sealed jugs and put what going to be used for immediate consumption in reusable plastic tupperwear type pitchers with lids. It all depended on how much milk I had at the time.<br><br>
Bottom line, plastic designed for single use like commerical milk jugs shouldn't be reused and especially for raw milk products. Heck if you aren't supposed reuse them for water, why would you for raw milk?

 

[crissei]

I think the cleanliness is slack but probably not harmful unless you store the milk for more than a couple of days.<br>
If you are concerned about it mabye you could ask to watch her milk (just for fun) then you can watch to see if they do such things as, use sterilized containers, WASH the teats before milking, discard the first few squirts, use a straining cup (to check for bad stuff), filter the milk, and refrigerate quickly (preferably on ice)<br><br>
If she does everything <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/bow2.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="bow2"><br><br>
If she does most <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/nod.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="nod"><br><br>
If she does none <img alt="" class="inlineimg" src="http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/Bolt.gif" style="border:0px solid;" title="bolt">