General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Another "raw milk" incident... [View all]moriah
(8,312 posts)Properly sterilized milking machines, latched to properly sterilized udders, can withstand the cow crapping in the middle of milking. The milk never has contact with air, let alone crap. Cows crap all the time, as you say.
Still, as I said in my other post, there are other pathogens that cannot be solved as easily as fecal contamination, and the ways to prevent them (preventative antibiotic treatment, for one example) doesn't appeal to the majority of people who want to drink raw milk. It would take a very special dairy to get me to drink raw milk -- I certainly wouldn't drink it from a farmer's market or some other place where I hadn't been able to inspect their milking operation myself.
This is from a person who comes from a family of dairy farmers... the last time I drank raw milk it was wonderful and certainly the cream from it was a heck of a lot tastier than store-bought half-and-half, but I also had a lot more confidence and could watch the cows being milked myself when I walked down there with my glass jug to get a gallon.