Grass fed diary cow production

If its legal to sell in Wisconsin , then you might want to try to set up CSA (subscription) or be a part of buyer club. I need to find out if it legal in Indiana . Thier is a breed of cow milk that i want to try out.

Apparently it legal in Wisconsin . check this site for other who do it . http://www.eatwild.com/PRODUCTS/allgrassdairies.html

Keep in mind that "going organic" is not something you do & complete in the one season. You might want to label your milk instead as "all natural - no herbicides, pesticides, petroleum based fertilizers, growth hormones or antibiotics were used to produce this milk."

BTW - regarding pasteurizing - it also kills listeriosis bacteria - which causes miscarriage in pregnant women. Not something I 'd take lightly.

If you are selling to a plant, the milk is routinely tested for somatic cells (mastitis indicator), your tank milk is tested for plate cell count (cleanliness indicator), and it is pasteurized for safety. I believe it was also reoutinely tested for listeriosis; if it hadn't been I wouldn't have been drinking it during my first pregnancy. (Cows were gone by my second pregnancy.) If you decide on private, raw sales, please please please find some way to have your milk routinely tested if at all possible.

We stopped dairying 18 years ago, sold grade B milk from our herd of 18 holsteins. The ONLY reason it was grade B is because the milk was carried across the yard to the milk house...our milk otherwise met and exceeded all the Grade A requirements. We still have our 300 gallon bulk tank, which cooled the milk down to less than 45 degrees (37-42, I think), and we had some wonderful tasting milk.

Good milking hygeine is critical to producing a good product - cows caked in manure, udders barely washed, milk not filtered appropriately, poor cooling, and milking equipment that is not scrubbed off, rinsed, sanitized, and hung to dry appropriately in a clean, fly free environment each time it is used will all produce a very bad, and quite possibly un-safe product.

Do your homework if you want to enter into sales of milk - the DATCP in Wi can tell you all the formal regulations. There are good 'whys' behind all of it, tho it may not be easily apparent.

Here is some info I found on grass-fed dairy cattle.

http://www.thedairysite.com/articles...-to-dairy-cows

Phil, there is no such thing as legal sales of raw milk in wisconsin - the trautman farm in se dane county was just shut down maybe a month ago and there are others, too, that have been shut down due to raw milk sales. The trautmans were selling it as pet food with an agreement signed by customers to use it as pet food - didn't matter at all. I originally looked at one of the trautman's cows, post-shut down, when I was started my search for a milk cow.

grassfed pasturized milk, yes. raw milk, no. And I don't know if you can sell any milk, regardless, straight off the farm.

First I want to say great site Callieslamb. I'm always looking for good info. Until recently my family and I were drinking raw unpasteurized milk and loved it. We stopped because they started feeding grain as part of their diet. Bummer for us, but I hope to get our own dairy cow by spring time. The milking practices of the cows makes all the difference in the product you end up with.

Mark T, as you mentioned, I was wondering about a cow being too good a producer to make it without grain. Seems most dairy cows now are bred to be dependent on it. Don't know if you could get certain strains who are bred for lower production, or maybe use some dairy beef cross cows.

I had already been thinking about this, there is a near by dairy that I thought about seeing if they could help me out with testing.

Thank you for the information, a quick look up on Google confirmed what I had a suspicion of, raw milk sales are pretty much flat out not allowed, no sneaking around it. I personally have nothing against pasteurized milk and if I was going to drink my own milk I would pasteurize it myself (big germaphobe). I have milked cows (worked for a couple farms) and worked at a creamery for about 3 years so I have some dairy experience.

I would like to be somewhat immune to the radical price swings so I figured some out of the box thinking might be required to avoid them. Doing things conventionally I would have to produce about 152,500 pounds a year (417 pounds a day average) at 8 dollars a hundred minimum to make it. The idea of having half the cows and making more money to boot is an attractive one to me. There is a large dairy about 25 miles from me that sells milk right off the farm (pasteurized of coarse).

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Phil, I am pretty sure there is a Wisconsin Grazier's group that you could connect to through your county ag Extension agent. THey would be a wealth of information if you wanted to consider intensive grazing, limiting grain, organic, and/or seasonal milking. Also, the cows they have selected for do well with a grazing system. Many have played with cross breeds, and are having success. It isn't always about the price they receive for the milk, but the lower inputs that help make it profitable.

could you raise dairy calves - grass fed - & sell the finished product? The butchering could be done at an approved plant. The consumer knowledge base about the benefits of grass fed is growing rapidly...

I have had our own raw milk on our farm throughout my last three pregnancies and have never hesitated to drink it for fear of listeriosis. Listeriosis in many cases occurs in pasteurized milk that has been contaminated after the pasteurization process. It has also been linked to bad silage in many cases.

I know the process my milk goes through from before it leaves the cow until it is in my refrigerator. My cows are healthy, pastured, fed a minimal amount of grain, and not kept in tightly confined mucky areas where they become caked in manure.

I agree with Emily: healthy cows produce healthy milk.

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