Our Milk Quality Plan

We have devoted countless hours to educating ourselves, on the care of dairy cows and the handling of raw milk to ensure highest quality milk possible. Below, you will find our Milk Quality Plan. Producing quality milk goes much further than safe handling procedures. Quality milk comes from healthy cows, and healthy cows result from good nutrition, healthy soil, and clean living conditions.
In order to best make an informed choice about raw milk, we encourage members to review our Milk Quality Plan listed below, and to take a moment to review the following information.

Land Management

• Land is irrigated with pressurized irrigation via sprinklers and kept green during the grazing season.
• We seed pasture with organic beneficial grasses and forbs.
• Noxious weeds are killed or reduced using organic methods.
• We use multi-species holistic management and rotational grazing practices to build soil health and fertility.
• Pastures are managed so all manure the animals leave is well composted, before the next grazing cycle.
• Manure from animal holding areas is composted before being applied to pastures or is applied at the end of a grazing cycle so it may compost during the resting cycle.

Milk Cow Corrals & Holding Areas.
Corrals are kept from getting muddy and accumulating excess manure as much as possible. In times of continuing rain cows are provided with bedding to keep them out of them out of the mud.

Milk Cow Health and Feeding

• All cows are observed daily to monitor health and condition.
• All cows that present with infections, poor body condition, mastitis, lameness or other significant health challenges are separated from the milk string and milked last and separately until such time as the determination can be made that the animal is healthy and that the milk is not at risk.
• All new Cows are tested for disease, treated for parasites & quarantined before being introduced to the established herd.
• Herd is grazed during the grazing season and are always grazed first in rotation.
• During winter and they are provided hay, grown using holistic and organic management practices.
• Milking animals receive a small portion of organic grain with minerals after milking to ensure all their nutrition needs are met.

Milking Practices
We Milk using a milking machine. That way the milk is less likely to become contaminated vs milking into an open bucket. Our milking equipment is washed thoroughly after every milking and sanitized just prior to each milking.

We start the milking  process by brushing any lose hair, dirt and hay off the cows coat. The teats are washed with a small amount of water then dried. Next we strip out a few squirts of milk into a striping cup and check for abnormalities, after which we dip the teats in antibacterial (organic use approved) teat dip, then thoroughly dry them with a paper towel before we attach the milker and milk the cows. After Milking the cows' teats dipped again and they are returned to the pasture or holding pen.

Milk Handling & Bottling Practices
After completion of milking the milk is brought into the house, immediately strained and put into sanitized bottles, which are then placed into an ice bath for 40 minutes to cool them to just above 32 degrees. Once chilled the bottles are then placed in our dedicated milk refrigerator and held at just above 32 degrees until they are picked up by our customers. 

Milk Testing

• Milk is tested monthly at a certified dairy lab for Standard Plate Count, Coliform, E. coli O157 & Salmonella. Results are posted on our website.
• If at any time bacteria counts falls outside of recommended limits, Rocky Ridge will immediately invite the input of other experienced raw milk producers and our community partners to identify the cause. Retesting will occur until bacteria counts fall within the standards.

Recall Plan
Milk received from Rocky Ridge is for the exclusive use of the share members. Contact information is kept on each member. If there ever was an outbreak, all members would be contacted immediately.