Raw Goat Milk - is it safe?

Healthy and Happy Goats!

I'm often asked if it is safe to use raw goat milk?  Michael, who parks near our homestead and walks a mile through the woods to his little house, once told me that it is either the best food in the world or the worst - I believe ours is the best.  Washington State Department of Agriculture has rules for licensed dairies on the handling of milk and requires the operator to get the temperature of the milk lowered to 42 degrees (F) within two hours.  To accomplish this we store our fresh milk between milkings in the deep freezer (in the barn set at -22 degrees F) until we are ready to bring it in the house to strain.  We strain the milk into quart Mason jars that are stored in the deep freezer (in the house) and then let it cool in an ice bath for another 1 and 1/2 hours before putting it in the refrigerator.

All of our milk containers are either washed in the dishwasher on a high temperature sani-wash cycle or washed by hand using soap, Clorox and scalding hot water.  Once a month we use a special chemical on all of our milk pots to cut the milkstone (the milk protein that builds up on the metal pots).

Quart jar of goat milk sitting in bath of ice cold water - be sure to bring water to top of the milk level.  A bucket of crushed ice would be best but I don't have an ice maker.

Barn cleanliness is also important.  We remove all of the straw bedding from the goat barn weekly and clean the milk stand after every milking.  We work hard to keep the rodent population as low as possible using barn cats, poison, and traps.  All feed buckets are stored in a way to keep rodents out of them.  We store our grain in metal cans with tight fitting lids and besides humans, no animals are allowed into the milk room other than the goat being milked.  We are not a licensed dairy as the rules for that are beyond our financial abilities.  We have a friend in Freeland who just went through the process to be licensed so she could sell her goat cheese to the public and spent over $200,000 building a State approved dairy for just 20 some goats.  We are talking multiple enclosed  rooms with special walls, special ventilation systems, concrete floors...People have been drinking raw milk throughout the world for 10,000 years without even using the safeguards we do and have thrived, so that is really overkill for us.

Our goat milk is strained through a new filter, never using cheese cloth or pillow cases.  The filter is rinsed out and thrown away after each batch of milk.  When we make cheese using raw milk, the cheese is strained in a clean cheese cloth (again, NEVER with a pillow case).  The cheese cloth is rinsed and washed in the clothes washer, and then before being used for cheese we sterilize it in boiling water for a few minutes.

Straining goat milk before going into ice bath to cool

Our goats are kept healthy, eating mostly organic products (grain, hay and bedding straw are certified organically grown) and have a large pasture of grass, stinging nettle, and brambles.  We only treat our goats with antibiotics if they have a problem and our vet recommends such treatment.  We use a chemical to treat for worms, but again only if they have the symptoms.  Before milking we wash their utter, teats, and belly with a chemical wipe specifically made for this.  After milking we use a teat dip to sterilize the teat.  We test monthly for bacteria in the milk and annually for four goat problems: CAE virus, Johne's disease,  Bruelloiss and CL - the four nasty goat diseases.  All of our goats have tested negative.  We check for lice on a regular bases (the usual problem time is spring just after they give birth), and treat if they are infected with a powder insecticide. And, of course, we wash our hands on a regular basis, in between milking the individual goats, and always when returning from the barn.  It's a lot of work keeping dairy goats and lots of responsibilities if you are going to use raw milk. 

I put a couple of links to raw goat milk up top and if you are interested in raw milk, they are good reading.