What are the regulations concerning the sale of goat milk? What about if it's sold as animal food? Just wondering. Thanks - Kathy

-- Kathy (jubilant@ncweb.com), April 04, 2000

Answers

Hi Kathy,

Be very careful selling goat milk from the farm. In our state, VA., its a crime and you can be arrested and go to jail. One of our leading goat breeders recently was in trouble for selling cheese.. shes had a case in supreme court now for almost 20 yrs over this. another thing to be careful about is selling milk to someone from your farm, drink the milk and then they go eat at a fast food place... they eat a bad burger and get E-coli and guess who gets blamed... you do. This was a recent case posted on our goat lists.

There are exceptions to these regulations but you have to ask your state ag dept. or extension agent about them. Cheese is a loophole in VA. we can sell at farmers markets.. again being careful as USDA is watching. don't mean to scare you off... just be very careful.

Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), April 04, 2000.

Kathy, totally depends on the state you live in. And even then it depends upon the mentality of the government around you. We live in Texas, Grade A dairy only for human consumption. We do not have problems with selling for animal use. Yet there are large farms here that are not Grade A, that sell there milk to cheese plants, I sell to a candy (mexican candy) maker. In our county and surrounding areas there is no one to turn someone into to, and belive me I have tried, we have a store up the road that sells, resells day old bread from the bread store, among other things. Your worst enemy is always going to be the other goat or cattle guy that you are taking business away from! Vicki McGaugh

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 04, 2000.

Regulations vary state to state and can get you coming and going. When I lived in Arkansas I was told (I didn't investigate myself because I wasn't interested in selling milk)that you could sell a certain amount of milk each month and be legal. When we lived in Missouri before, we looked up the law and learned that if the consumer brought his own containers, a producer could legally sell him milk. It intimated that the consumer would inspect and ask questions to protect himself. Nothing was said about milking facilities or health requirements of the animals. Later we learned that the enforcers of the law interpreted it to mean the producer had a $50,000 milking parlor, stainless steel bulk tank, etc. That didn't make a lot of sense economically so the only milk we sold was for pedigreed puppies, foals and orphaned fawns. Check out your local laws because this is one place where you must prove your innocence because the complaintant doesn't have to prove your guilt. It breaks my heart when a mother calls at wit's end when her child can't take breast milk, formula or anything and wants to try goat milk. Here's an already sick baby and if anything else happens to it, I could be blamed. I have to send them to the grocery for canned goat milk and hope in the meantime that they lose my phone number.

You can't always depend on the consumer either. One July, a woman called and wanted milk for a foal whose mother refused to nurse it. I told her to bring containers that could be easily cleaned, not rinsed out plastic milk jugs and an ice chest with ice. When she arrived, she had no ice chest, no ice and 6 plastic milk jugs. I made mention of our earlier conversation and she said she was going straight home, would put it in the refrigerator immediately when she got there and would accept the risks. I proceeded to fill the jugs smelling the sour milk smell in 2 and pointing it out to her. She still wanted to use them. It was about a 25 mile drive to her house. The next week she called to chew me out that the milk had spoiled before she could use it all. And oddly enough, she didn't remember one bit of our discussion when she was at our house.

marilyn

-- Marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), April 04, 2000.

Kathy, You can sell raw goats milk here in Kansas, but as the other ladies pointed out there are problems with the customers. It is also in demand for puppies, etc., since they do so well with it. I only sold to people in the local community, we traded jars so I was positive the jar was very very clean. hope this helps. karen

-- Karen Mauk (dairygoatmama@hotmail.com), April 05, 2000.

I checked when we first moved here to New Hampshire, and we are allowed to sell up to twenty quarts a day (average -- it could be ten quarts one day, and thirty the next). I didn't choose to sell any milk because of the liability concerns -- and we don't have goats now because I got carpal tunnel syndrome, probably mostly because of hand- milking for ten years. Makes me wonder how many other people have had the same problem.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 11, 2000.

Our liabilities don't start with selling milk. Every decision makes its own set of liabilities. We don't sell milk, never have, - but we've been on the hot seat about our milk. Had friends from the city that visited once or twice a year. They called us to tell us that their son had tested positive for TB.

They lived in a BIG city, but the only place he could possibly be exposed to TB was our raw cows milk. We had the cow tested every year for TB, but got the vet out to test her again. She was negative, but we were holding our breath for the three days before the test was read. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop, as to where this was going to go.

Had she been postitive for TB, I'm pretty sure we were going to find out just how liable we were. We mailed them the vet's statement, and they never asked to visit again. I guess they figured that one out.

We have never stopped welcoming people into our home and sharing the bounty of our table, but it was an education about what we open ourselves to by doing so. It is not a perfect world.

-- homestead2 (homestead@monroecty.net), April 12, 2000.