High quality milk

I just want to let people know how happy we are with our milk quality.

One day Duane gave me a magazine article to read. It was about 5 producers who regularly keep the SCC below 50,000. That is basically the cow wellness measurement in their milk. Of course he was shocked when I bought the CMT (California mastitis test) and the micro fiber wipes the following week. I tell him all the time, why read about it if you aren't going to do it? I printed and laminated a milk procedure for all of us milking our cows to follow. Low and behold, our milk started getting better.

Right now we are producing milk as good as I think it can get. Our SCC is down to a month average of 70,000. Our bacteria is 1,000, and our P.I. is at 2,000.

Things we did that I think matter:

implementing the milk house routine,

repairing the free stall barn,

keeping lots of clean sand in the stalls when the girls aren't on pasture,

and hiring a good hoof trimmer that comes on a regular basis.

Around the farm

I can't believe how long it has been, again!

So here is what I have been doing.

Watching my niece become a woman of our family. That means making the rock candy for the season.

Sadie is totaly doing the milking with me. She can handle the cows that don't reallly like being milked.

We now have a couple Gurnsey cows.

We also have dubbed this goofy cat our milk house mascot. She sits here every day the entire time we milk the cows.