Milk Tests

We send milk tests off to Udder Health Systems on a 6-8 week basis. These tests tell us a lot! We think anyone who sells RAW milk should do these tests. It helps you know if your process works!
We test for three things primarily:

  • Total Bacteria
    • ​​This should be under 5000 always, we prefer ours to be the lowest "<2500": Simply, these are the beneficial and generally neutral bacteria naturally in milk, they are not likely to make anyone sick, but they do feed on the milk and slowly break it down. So milk that tests high in these bacteria will have a lesser shelf life and likely have an unpleasant flavor. Milk that tests high will also not be great for making cheese or other products. The usual cause for high total bacteria is either poor cooling or not holding cool temperature in storage. It could also mean the milking process has a gap in sanitation.
 
  • Coliform Bacteria
    • ​The range factor for the lab may vary, but on our test it is 15, so <15 means the milk is GOOD!: I bet you know these! They are the ones that "could" make you sick. We have these around us all the time and we can usually fight them off, but, many of us cannot. Those people are immune-compromised, they include: children under 5, adults over 65, pregnant women, or anyone undergoing something that weakens their immune systems: chemotherapy, HIV-AIDS, organ transplant, autoimmune disease etc. Here is more info on Compromised Immune Systems . It is important that RAW milk for retail never has a result higher than the minimum result (you will never get a zero, labs cant guarantee that), four our lab it is <15 (this result could mean there was none found or less than 15). If a dairy has an unsafe test result, they need to stop production immediately and have the lab further the testing to find out exactly what Coliform is present. Milk sales need to stop at this point until the milk tests in the safe range again. The presence of Coliform means that there is contamination during milking or a goat might have mastitis. If Somatic Cells are in the normal range then it is human error and contamination that needs to be addressed.
 
  • Somatic Cell
    • ​AKA white blood cells for goats in milk should ALWAYS be below 1,000,000, a good number is <150,000: These cells will tell us the health of the animals as a group, when the group milk testes high, it is time to test each animal individually. A high somatic cell count could mean any of the following:
      • The animal has an infection, maybe mastitis
      • The doe might have recently given birth or is at the end of her milk cycle, it is normal to have high cell counts at this time. A doe should not be milked for retail less than a week after giving birth and after 6-7 months of milking it is natural for her system to send out white blood cells to try and dry her up for the fall.
      • The animal is under stress or being bullied
      • The animal does not have all the "essentials" from the farmer to be healthy. These being: good food, good water, plenty of space and the ability to act like a goat should..... play, eat, socialize, be treated humanely and have a stimulating life :)

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