Follow Diane's advice. It is precisely these kinds of unsanitary procedures that give fodder to the feds on the subject of 'outlawing raw milk because it is dangerous'.

A healthy herd of pastured cows will produce milk that is highly anti-pathogenic in it's raw state. For eons all cows were grass-fed and hand-milked; there was no running water, no steaming of equipment and no refrigeration. Milk was consumed mainly as a cultured product by herders, and, later, skimmed for butter and cheese and for cooking. Mother's milk has always been necessary for offspring to flourish.

Likely, most of this farm's milk goes off in bulk to be pasteurized – this can make farmers/workers feel less care is needed because of the extreme processing that dairy undergoes before mass retailing. Please be understanding of his situation – ALL farmers/workers deserve grateful appreciation for the service work they do – on call 24/7.

Keep an eye out for another source if these are grain-fed ladies; culture or cook with their milk until you can be assured of the health of the herd. Heat it to 180*F before giving it fresh to babies or the elderly. It is un-homogenized and STILL better by far than processed milk from the grocery. Don't give up and good luck!

Lynn

That may lead to improvements — and perhaps you'll be able to tell (discern) if it doesn't.

But this new place doesnt have a tap on there tank, so they use a plastic jug, which they dip in the tank and then fill the bottles like that….

My concern is….i went the other week and the farmer was not there, but it was one of the workers…..He could not find the jug…so he dipped the bottle straight in the tank to fill……WITH HIS HAND IN THE TANK FULL OF MILK….

OH god that just put me off….and i didnt even see him wash his hands….even though that would not have changed a thing for me…..

Now this has got to be bad Hygiene standards or even against the law to selling raw milk??

Can anyone tell me or give me some advise.

We have our program all but finalized — just waiting to hear from BC Corporate Registry that our new class of shares has been approved.

To summarize: we are already a co-op. But to be sure not to run afoul of Canada's draconian anti-raw-milk thugs, we added a separate class of shares to the co-op, the proceeds of which ONLY support the dairy herd.

Our "Frequently Asked Questions" page that explains things in general:
http://www.EcoReality.org/wiki/Dairy_herd_share_FAQ

Our pricing structure:
http://www.EcoReality.org/wiki/Dairy_herd_share_fees

Our application form:
http://www.EcoReality.org/wiki/Dairy_herd_share_application

The actual contract:
http://www.EcoReality.org/wiki/Dairy_herd_share_agreement

Hope this is helpful!

We've had people want to transfer the milk into their containers, but we won't do it. The only time we did, they complained because they said it went bad quickly. Well, DUH!

The only milk we put in plastic is for freezing. If we get way ahead on milk, we'll freeze some of it in one gallon plastic juice jugs. We then often sell it to a wildlife centre who feeds it to orphaned fawns, or we'll make it into cheese, but we prefer not to consume it once it's been in plastic.

Here is what we ask our customers to do with their bottles. It is important to do a vigorous cold water rinse as soon as the bottle is empty:

http://www.EcoReality.org/wiki/Cleaning_milk_bottles

Thanks for sharing; I'm always so pleased to hear that another person realizes the value of farm fresh milk – a complex liquid with many aspects. I'm pretty sure that a portion of milk's behavior is dependent on the types of bacterial interactions happening at different temperatures and pH

My farmer uses plastic for the same reason yours does except that his customers wanted it instead of him. My fellow WAPF Chapter Leader always decants her fresh milk immediately into half-gal. wide-mouth glass jugs and puts them into the walk-in cooler of her restaurant. And she complains that too much of her milk goes sour before she uses it up. The farmer and I have postulated that the aeration during the pouring is part of the issue. It could also be the jars are not properly sterilized before the milk goes into them.

Ironically, the milk I get from the same farm within hours after it's milked, has kept for up to 30 days in my storage refrigerator in the original plastic jugs it comes in. This has been my experience for 3 years now. It goes through a lot to get to me – by car and by boat or snowmobile.

I have just recently been researching the diet of patients at tuberculosis sanitoria in the early 1900′s. It was heavily weighted with dairy, eggs, and broths. I found out that homogenization was originally called aeration, and one of the reasons it was instituted was because it mitigated the pastured flavor that patients objected to that can sometimes be in summer milk. This caused the milk to go rancid very quickly necessitating the need for pasteurization to get the product even to a market that was just a few miles away. Of course, it also obliterated the cream line – an important quality marker.

Best to you,
Lynn

So I agree, something fishy in the Alaska testing.

http://www.realmilk.com/does-raw-milk-kill-pathogens.html