rachels.haven's Journal

[rachels.haven]

Thank you.
I've used rawmilk.com. It says sale of raw milk is allowed. No herd shares. No pet milk. Apparently I'm not supposed to give it away.
Basically the way the laws work around here is, you have to contact the local authorities to see if they are favorable to a dairy in town. Everything is in town, there is no country, so everyone is in a jurisdiction. My guy was happy about it. Made it sound like I could start selling tomorrow. In passing he said I should contact MDAR for more info. No rules are posted anywhere online. Our state does this for everything. It's one reason people are so stupid about shooting coyotes (fish and wildlife can GIVE you a copy of the laws, but you can not have them as a member of the general public without asking). If the state does post laws for the public, what you can get are abridged and incomplete. On this there is nothing. MDAR informed me I have to have a separate plumbed, 100% washable milk room with hot water and a drain installed, two sinks, at least two stands. They informed me they want me to machine milk as their preference. I will not. Pounds sand. I breed goats for hand milking (plus, so easy to become unsanitary of cleaning is not complete) And that I have to have monthly inspections that I must pass or be put out of business and fined each time in addition to monthly bacterial counts and that the count must be below the count for pasteurized milk after pasteurization (food scientist mother in law says pasteurized milk is often "dirty", so may be attainable). They gave me a rather informal looking pdf document with the "rules" on it from several years ago. It states all this is regardless of quantity sold. They told me nothing about cost, which was my question contacting them, totally blowing it off but if I've learned anything here, it's that the state foots nothing, you pay everything here so you'd better be affluent or ready to go in the hole. We aren't affluent or stupid enough to just jump into a dark void (erm, not paying mortgage, retirement, not having enough for emergencies in a family of kids isn't worth it) I need to know HOW MUCH, monthly cost, not to have an inspector invite herself over to my house to tell me how I fail long before I've even decided if it's wise to get ready. I still milk in my freaking barn alley with goats standing in the stalls popping their head over conversing with the milk-ee, nagging her to be done for crying out loud.

DH thinks we could have a passable milk room up for $5k or less. He's willing to drop that if we prepare for it. I have no desire to do this if the cost for testing and inspections is higher than the sale of milk+feed+bedding+what I allow for yearly surprise expenses like vet visit, forget profit. They haven't been straight with me on the matter of money, so I don't want anything to do with them.

I do want to do DHIA testing at some point. It's a cool goat thing you can do to show your herd's potential without too much biosecurity risk, but I wasn't planning on it this year, and I still need that cost quantified before diving in.

I don't understand why it's being blown off that I need to run those numbers before I agree to anything as a potential business owner. Farming isn't pie in the sky dreaming. I come from IOWA. Farming is data and numbers with variables such as weather and nature thrown in to be compensated for or you don't even have a prayer of staying in business. We'd keep the "farm" thanks to DH's high paying, high stress, wonder how long it will last job, but it wouldn't be a farm here really if it can't at least pay for itself (If it makes $1 of actual profit, I'd call it a farm).

But I guess this is the state that charges you 5 years of back taxes if you move after claiming any farming tax exemptions, on soil so poor that I have no idea how anyone gets anything out of it (hay guy's fam has been tilling and manuring fields for 307 years, so I guess that's how they get anything out of it), and apparently it's fairly normal to receive almost no rain all year here, all with sky high taxes to boot (that they do nothing with?). I guess I'm supposed to be a gentleman farmer, hobby farm dreamer and that's all they want to allow anyone to be. As long as they pump money and "power" into their system. Personally I'd like cash out to equal or almost equal cash in, especially before dropping so much of it to come into "compliance" and consenting to dropping an unknown amount more on a monthly basis.

Husband jokes we may need a lawyer to get them to come clean. He'd better be joking.

Anyway, that's my milk situation. Stepping down from the rant box.

Milk room would go on as an addition on the back of the barn, btw. Not sure how the plumbing would work with our septic there and we'd probably have to dig away some of the hillside with machinery and remove some 50' weed trees that shouldn't be there, but it would go there.

So anyway, I sell poop and spent bedding when I'm not hoarding it for myself. Sure hope that's not illegal.
When my mini fridge comes I'll go back to trying to sell eggs (no holds so you can not come at an undisclosed time, no "orders of 12 dozen to fill" by this date, no "surrender the cheap eggs" just a little fridge on the porch with eggs in it, first come, first serve when you let me know you're coming so I can put stuff out occasionally). For all I know they require you to be tested and NPIP for that too, but I don't want to check.

 

[farmerjan]

Requirements for dairying are ridiculous.... but understand that most/some/many people that are "making a conscious choice to want to drink raw milk because it is healthier" are not that well educated and the first thing that they do is sue someone because they get sick. I know that many do raw milk for the health benefits, and are well aware of the risks and such. But the laws are there because they have to protect the miniscule part of society that is too stupid to use their brain. Like the one getting burned from a cup of HOT COFFEE..... those idiots.
I am not trying to defend Mass laws.... or any other stupid laws because I think that the biggest problem is people don't and won't take responsibility for themselves. But we are not dealing with sensible people or situations any more. We are in a nanny state (no pun intended) and people have to be protected against things they don't "get" because they are too dumb to understand what they want and the risks that are associated.
Have you read any of @babsbag journey into the making of the goat dairy in Ca? She went through he// with the regulations, and after getting it all up and going, with the snow that collapsed her barn, help problems that caused so much grief with getting the kids fed, and then her health problems and she finally sold it all. She made it on trailers, so it could be moved, and met all the regs in Ca....
I am not suggesting that you go "commercial" , but for cleanliness reasons, they want the milk to go directly from the goat teat into a sanitized stainless steel container with no access to the air, or falling hair or dirt or hay strands or anything else getting into it.
I hear you on the pasteurized milk being "dirty".... again, much of that is due to scc in the milk before it is pasteurized. That is why the commercial milk companies pay a premium to dairies with low scc because the milk will have a longer shelf life at the store. SCC occurs in every drop of milk.... in order to have a healthy udder and all, it is a part of life just like a certain amount of bacteria is needed to have a healthy gut tract and it isn't all good. It has to be balanced. But that is one of the reasons that most of the dairy farmers do DHIA test..... for the scc counts on each cow.... Other things like pounds produced is important, and record keeping is simpler when we compile everything in one place for comparison and purebred registered cows need the records as "proof" of their production and all so that when they sell an animal, there is more than the farmers word to go on as far as production records.....

Bacteria counts are very important to every dairy farmer that "ships" milk. "Plate count" has to be under a certain number or they will get a visit from their field rep (from the milk company they are shipping to) and they try to find where there could be an "unclean spot" in say the milk line.... The farmer can get shut down from shipping milk with a high bacteria count.
I doubt that 5 G will get the room done and all the requirements met. As soon as you got it done, they would then question the septic being able to handle the water and solutions that are needed to wash and sanitize the milking equipment. Then they will question your handling of the milk and bottling.... believe me there is alot.

I think that FTCLDF might be a better site for you to see the "legalities" and requirements. I would strongly suggest that you do a "goat share" or something like that and have a "restricted" group that gets milk. OR give it away when someone pays you 10/doz for eggs.....

Conn was the same, we were in a town, the county lines were there from the "old days" and very little was county jurisdiction. So yes, you have to meet their rules and regs. Even if the county was in control, if you live within the town area, you are subject to those rules first, then the county then the state.

You are in a "hobby farm" area, farming is no longer a viable business in most all the New England states unless, like the hay guy, they have been there since the pilgrims and they have managed to hang on to the land.
And let me tell you that there are now some serious situations with some of the herbicides used on hay... for some of the terribly invasive weeds, that have residual effects, and the manure from the animals eating this hay, and the spoiled hay used as mulch, can carry the residual effects of the herbicide and kill your garden....If you are not 100% sure of where the hay comes from, you need to be careful....so now you have to be concerned that the goat poop doesn't kill the plants it is used to fertilize.
We use very little herbicide on our hay. But there are times when we are having an invasion of "sand briars" and johnson grass that we have used sprays.... people don't want that in their hay because they don't want to pay for weeds.... but the opposite side of the coin is what are they doing with the "product out the other end of the animal"? Everyone wants manure straight from the cow/goat/rabbit/sheep/horse, mixed in to a nice compost.... but there could be repercussions to that too.
There are some "organic" ways to combat these invasive weeds, and often the timing of cutting and such really helps... but the weather has made it difficult to get hay made when it will benefit the fields too by cutting with some weeds in a stage that will help to kill them off; pre seeding stage but close to it so the roots are not fed and they seed heads cannot spread seed.... in essence starving the plant. Years ago, with big families, you used to go out with a hoe and actually manually chop and dig out things like thistles....Who do you see doing that anymore?????

So when you find "certified organic" products, realize that there is alot more "man hours" in it and that is why it is so much more expensive too....one person can only do so much in a day, even if they work 8 straight hours.....it is back breaking work and in hot weather and such it is impossible to keep up with some of it. So it naturally costs more than being able to treat a 20 acre field with an hours worth of tractor time spraying and $10 worth of spray ( not exact... just an example for comparison)

 

[rachels.haven]

You bring up valid points, I appreciate that. That totally sounds like this state, and people here. Thank you for "defending" the laws. Sadly, we may just want to move first before I do milk. Those were my original feelings, but I figured I'm biased and DH was hopeful...and still hates moving.

I could always do the egg idea. Herdshares would get me in trouble. The other milking lady in town "trades" and barters her milk supposedly. I don't know how that works for her but I hope it does somehow. She's bred nice udders on her nigerians. Plus, she's tough as nails and needs to get by.

I'll also ask the hay guy about herbicide usage. It hasn't hurt my berries and figs, but I know how that goes. The goat manure does make the lawn go crazy. I could write my initials in spent bedding in the lawn and have it come up in green monster grass (and monster lawn weeds) in a few weeks, so I'm hopeful. Also herbicides are pricy, and a lot of his hay goes to feed my hay man's beef herd and sheep. I'll make sure to keep veggie gardening out of my ad especially, possibly permanently, but definitely while I do my homework, testing and questioning.
Thank you.

 

[Ridgetop]

Farmer Jan is in the right of it when she says you will not get a Grade a dairy parlor up and operating for $5000. You will need stainless equipment, milking machines, storage facilities, refrigeration facilities, and a lot more. Also, a large farm or dairy liability insurance policy which may be a problem with your current insurer since unless you are licensed and zoned as a farm or agribusiness they might want to cancel your homeowners insurance. Read Overthemoon's journal to see all the headaches she had to go through to get her dairy up and running. She is in California as am I and when I found out what it would take to operate as a dairy, I backed away and found other ways to utilize my goat milk. Every surface touched by the milk must be stainless steel and food grade, you have to have coveralls and hair nets when working with the milk. your refrigeration space must have a thermometer and be kept below a minimum temperature so the inspector can check the temperature when they come. Lots of other regulations as to what cleaning products you can or must use and paperwork as well. Oh yes and don't forget that you have to have a dishwasher in the milk house to sterilize all the stainless stuff too.

With a minimum of 12 standard dairy does milking for 10 months, all of them high yielders or star does, we had a daily production average of 12-14 gallons per day for that 10 month period. I had a full size fridge (one of the cold drink cases you see in the markets) to store my milk, which I kept in gallon sized glass jars DH would get from delis where his crew would go for lunch. Milk tastes better if stored in glass, and the wide mouths on the jars fit the gallon stainless steel milk strainer perfectly. I was running 3 pasteurizers every day, 2 of which also heat treated colostrum. While we drank our house milk unpasteurized, we pasteurized and bottle fed all the kids to prevent CAE which can occur from exposure to other goats. We took the buck kids to the auction at 6-8 weeks. By the way if you pasteurize a trick is to put a drop of blue or green fool color into the milk so you know what is pasteurized and which is not. I only pasteurized in the morning running the pasteurizers for 4-5 hours a day, so I had to hold the unpasteurized milk overnight. Blue milk meant we could immediately see what to feed the goats kids. Bucks in the dairy world are worthless and only worth meat value. That value was minimal years ago at $15-20/hd. Now with the ethnic population the value of milk fed goat kids has gone into the $150 range. We had 2 milking machines and put 4 does at a time in the 4 goat stanchion DH had built. Milking took over an hour every morning and again every evening. We were fast, meticulous on sanitizing, udder washing before and after, and teat dipping after each milking. The milk lines and inflations were brought to the house each day after each milking am and pm, washed, and sterilized. We did weekly mastitis tests just in case, blood testing annually for CAE and diseases, and vaccinations. I finally resorted to canning the milk since I ran out of freezer space. Remember that I had 4 children who were good farm workers at that time who could handle all the equipment except the pasteurizers, and our whole family was involved in this work. Even a semi-commercial dairy is lots of work. When the last of the chidren went to college and sold their dairy herd

If you have a lot of milk - more than you can use in the house - there are other uses for it. You can raise pigs and calves. Is there a dairy in driving distance? If so, check about buying day old bull calves. You have to be careful about them getting colostrum since most dairymen just chuck the bull calves into a holding pen for the "calf man" to ick up every day. Depending on the dairy they might sell you some colostrum and you can buy extra to put in the freezer. Colostrum can't go into the bulk milk tanks so they have the newly freshened cows milking separately. The "calf man" usually buys all the colostrum and medicated milk from the dairies to feed the calves, but you can save some of your goat colostrum as a backup.

When we were milking 12 to 20 dairy goats (standard, not dwarf or Nigies) we had so much milk that we would buy our calves from a 4-H friend that had a large dairy an hour away. She would make sure that the calves she sold us had their colostrum. If you are not sure the calves have had colostrum you can give them some LA200. Save your 2nd and 3rd day colostrum from your goats to give to the calves. We would pick up 2-3 bull calves at a time and feed them 2 quarts of goat milk am and 2 quarts pm. By the time they were a month old they were eating all the left over alfalfa stems our girls turned up their picky noses at. At 2 months we loaded those pretty shiny Holstein calves into the trailer and made the one hour trip to the cattle auction. At the auction the calves sold as one lot. I got more for my Holstein 2 month old calves than a lot of people got for their Angus looking calves, mainly because on all that rich got milk, my calves were fat, sassy, and had no scours or manure on their butts. It paid for most of our hay since I could turn over 3 calves every couple of months. During fair time, my kids raised veal calves for auction - no hay or grain just as much milk as they would drink - up to 300 lbs. or 3 months old. We also fed excess milk to our pigs. Soak a bucket of corn in got milk in the am and feed the sitting bucket at pm, do the same at night and feed in the morning.

Since you can't sell your milk, use it to produce either meat for your freezer or a product you can sell. Of course those Massachusetts people might react unfavorably if you advertised hand raised veal calves or pork. The trick too, is to sell the animal live and then deliver it to the butcher for free as a sweetener. You can usually put up ads for your hand raised livestock at the butcher's too. This will be cheaper and just as profitable as putting $20,000 into a Grade A dairy facility. That amount is more in line when you consider that all equipment must be food grade, you must have hot and cold water, electricity, lighting, plumbing, concrete floors with drain channels, and walls that can be hosed down. You can't get away with chipboard interiors. MA gets very cold so you will need some sort of heating as well as extra insulation in the dairy room in the winter too.

Another trick is to only sell your pasteurized milk privately. In this case you would CHARGE FOR THE CONTAINER ONLY AND NOT THE MILK WHICH WOULD BE GIVEN AWAY. I preferred raising the calves because I got tired of people wanting to come on my property and treating the visit as a petting zoo opportunity for their children. A waste of my day. Also you still run the risk of lawsuits from litigious people. I sold milk occasionally for orphaned puppies and foals, but i let everyone know that selling milk for human consumption was illegal in California and the milk was only for animal consumption. I would write that on the container too.

A commercial Grade A dairy has a lot of liability. That is why the rules are so stringent. When buying raw milk privately you are taking a chance that the seller did not test her dairy animals, use the proper sanitation methods in milking, straining or refrigerating the milk. Milk needs to be chilled to a certain temperature within so many hours to avoid growth of bacteria. These rules are designed to prevent that. Milk testing of herds (like Farmerjan does) keeps track not only of the volume of milk from each animal, but also butterfat%, milk solids, and any somatic cell counts that may show infection or bacterial problems in the milk. This is all for the consumer's health protection.

DHIR milk testing can be done without a complete Grade A milk room since it is only for ADGA. This is how milk stars are earned. You will get the cell counts, butterfat %, somatic cell counts, etc. but you will have to find someone who will agree to go to the classes and act as your tester. I had a friend go to the classes with me and paid for her class. She was a fellow 4-H mother whose daughters were in the dairy goat project. She and her family were also our milkers when we went on our yearly beach camping holiday.

Selling the manure is a great idea. you can also compost is in a bin and start an earthworm farm. Earthworm loan is highly valuable to gardeners who will pay more for the earthworms to add to their garden. If you are finding it easy to sell the goat compost in Craigslist, you might want to invest in some large labels with a disclaimer on them stating the manure is only for landscape gardens, not for food gardens, and absolving you of liability from any misuse of the product.

 

[rachels.haven]

Clearly we should just move to Tennessee or a similar state and do herd shares. Lol, I feel lied to. Whatever though. One more reason to get out of here, I guess.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Miss @rachels.haven,

In case you are interested, here is a link to Miss Babsbag's journal: https://www.backyardherds.com/threads/jumping-the-moon-dairy-the-next-chapter.31123/. I must warn you, though -- reading that journal may make you as exhausted as reading Miss @farmerjan's journal. I don't mean it is boring. Instead, I mean she worked as hard at getting her dairy going as Miss Farmerjan does now. I would be exhausted simply from reading about all the work she did.

I thought of you today as I watched the latest video on the YouTube channel "MN Millennial Farmer". The video is about the derecho that went through Iowa last week. Didn't you reside in Iowa for awhile? In case you are interested, here is a link to the video:

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[rachels.haven]

@Senile_Texas_Aggie , yes I did. The wind there is to be respected. In some places it never stops blowing. When it picks up it can be like a solid wall against you. Not a lot of trees. One of the last years I was there they had another massive wind incident and it blew the giant stone chimney down on a cabin where an encampment of cub scouts were sheltering from the storm and killed several. The same storm took out our windbreak of ancient cedars, and turned me into a bird rehabber because you couldn't walk 5 feet without finding turned out nests and no "rescue" would take them unless they were endangered, and they wanted me to euthanize. I was just grateful my brothers missed that scout camp, and I got up with the sun at 4 am to feed fledgling bluejay babies before the resident cats got them until fall (I liked keeping them semi wild until their instincts kicked in and "are you my mommy" syndrome went away and they would pair off and leave so they could flock up and learn from their wild friends, but still get fed a natural amount of time).

I miss it there, even the constant wind, bitter snowy winters, and laughably humid summers. Magical cool nights, and as long as it wasn't chigger season, plenty of open space to go walk in and few ticks. Small, walkable, towns on grids. Only things that would prevent me from going back would probably be my allergies to alfalfa and other greenery that ran beautifully rampant, and maybe the meth epidemic if that's still going on. Knowing how slowly the time moves there it probably is.

Lots of accountability for your and your family's actions in those small towns too, which they sure don't have much of here. That coin has two sides depending on who your family is.

EtA: and the wind DOES howl there when it gets bad and doesn't stop.

 

[farmerjan]

I had heard about the storm but hadn't seen the damage. Thank you @Senile_Texas_Aggie for posting it. I honestly haven't been on the computer much except to come on here, and do a little banking and bill paying, with all the things that I have been trying to do and get set up at the new house.
We had a derechio go through here about 8 years ago? We were out of power for 5 days.... right around the 30th of June and got power on July 4th about 2 in the afternoon. Switched back and forth with my son with the generator to keep all the fridge & freezers running.... I was farm sitting and he had a whole house generator that automatically kicked on, so was able to go there and take a shower. I spent the better part of the day hauling water to pastures that had wells that wouldn't run without the electricity..... son was tied up with VDOT for 12 hour days removing trees and whatever.... they had so many of the locals with dump trucks hired to haul trees and debris....
It was a tough deal but we got through it. But there wasn't the same crop damage as in the corn belt states with the flat expanse of land....
My heart goes out to those guys yet they seem to be accepting as it seems that the winds out there are pretty common but not to that extreme. This is going to affect cattle prices down the road because where are they going to store all this grain that will be harvested with all these bins down.... It will get trucked to wherever they can find, costs will go up.
Everyone should realize that feed prices will be going up as a result of this too. And our cattle prices for the feeder calves will go down because they will be paying more for feed so will have to adjust to paying less for the calves since they work on such a small margin....
It is all so interconnected, not just within a certain area or community, but throughout the whole country.

 

[rachels.haven]

Yep. Corn is king and beans are queen. That's why price is on the radio every morning (there).

 

[rachels.haven]

Btw, rut is here this morning. Lots of drunk bucks in the buck pen "helping themselves" and grunting and roaring to prove who exactly is the beastliest...you know, half men half goats probably weren't invented because the Greeks and Romans thought goats were cute. How very characteristic of them. I moved the buck hay racks so I don't have to go in the pen anymore. I don't need to be peed on.

Anyway, Patrick in the breeding pen is not rutty. He is rarely rutty. I do think he got his first doe this year last night, so maybe we'll get SOME Patrick babies from that well behaved guy. I may need to give him a whole 2 doe cycles to get all 4 covered. He's, um, a gentleman. Without the other bucks he has hardly any smell at all. He does love Ava though...as his bff, which may not result in her being bred, but one can hope-cuddle buddies and all. Cause she's the buckiest one and it feels like home in the buck pen when they hang out.