BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[draye]

We can't get raw milk either. There were a few people selling it, but the government came in and shut them down, calling the mix "toxic".  

Buy yourself a milk cow. I would if I had the time to milk it. The way my job has me going in and working I don't even have enough time to give to my chickens. There are some days I don't see them at all and others I get to run out and feed and water, then my son gathers the eggs if he happens to remember to do that.

 

[stryker]

Anything that is good for a person is toxic! Well, according to the government.

OK, enough politics, What about a milk goat?

 

[abbevilleoz]

Anything that is good for a person is toxic! Well, according to the government.  

OK, enough politics, What about a milk goat?   

I love goats milk but it has to be fresh and ice cold.

 

[DesertChic]

There are a few quite nasty things that 'can' lurk in raw milk. I don't think I would drink it plain, but I would LOVE to get a hold of some for cheese.

We are constantly surrounded by germs. In fact, we are covered in germs, inside and out. Raw milk was a problem year ago, because germ theory didn't exist and folks had no idea how germs were spread. And then, after the germ theory came about, there was a problem with milk being transported increasingly longer distances to the cities without having refrigeration readily available. Raw milk is NOT the dangerous substance the government claims it to be. The gov't's involvement in the dairy industry is why they do not want people to drink raw milk, or to can their own milk for longer shelf life. It's an economic issue, NOT a safety issue these days. If you look at the stats of illness related to raw milk, they are minimal compared to many other foods. These days, we know how germs travel and raw milk dairies keep things clean, and they are subjected to testing of their milk as well. The risk of problems with raw milk in this day and age is very small.

Along the lines of milk, a number of years ago I found an Extension website discussing canning of milk. It admitted that the safety reason that the gov't gave for NOT canning your own milk was false. The govt didn't want people canning and saving their own milk, because then they would buy less milk. The govt is intimately involved in the entire dairy industry in the US and bases economic decisions on how much milk people drink. They don't want anyone to usurp their enterprise. Canned milk doesn't taste as good as fresh milk, but you can even safely pressure can your own milk, despite what the govt says.

My husband, many of his childhood friends, and several people I've worked with all grew up drinking raw milk and were of exceptionally good health in their youth. Heck, one of the leading cardiologists in the country stated on the news that the ONLY milk he'd recommend people drink is fresh raw milk because of the beneficial bacteria.

If we lived in a less arid environment and had a bit more properly I would most definitely have a milk cow, and maybe even some milk goats. I kind of miss drinking milk.

 

[bnjrob]

Yeah, I know it's not cheap, but, a cow produces 5 gallons of milk per day (google says 8, rounding down), so 35 gallons per week... or $525 per week to feed and milk the cow.... it can't cost that much...

But it isn't just to feed and milk the cow. There is the cost of buying a good cow, which is not cheap. You have the costs of milking and bottling equipment, including consumable items such as packaging, labels, storage crates, cleaning supplies. Have you ever priced just the cost of stainless steel milking buckets? The cost of feed isn't just for hay or grain, you have the costs of a tractor to make your own hay, as well as fertilize/plant your own hay fields, or just to move large hay bales and manure. There is routine veterinary care as well as emergency veterinary care. The dairy business means constantly having cow pregnant and feeding their young, because you can't get milk from cows that don't get pregnant. There are permits and licenses to have a business. Routine testing for diseases in your cows as well as routine testing of the milk to make sure you are keeping things satisfactorily sanitary. Utility and building costs for where you store and sell the milk. Salary costs for employees. Insurance for all your equipment and such, not to mention liability insurance to protect you if someone sues you for whatever reason. And the smaller the dairy farm, the higher their operating costs because they don't have the buying power that a larger dairy would have to get more supplies at a lower cost for buying in certain quantities.

That's just a small part of the costs involved when you own a business. It doesn't leave a lot for the owner to be able to pay themelves a salary so that they can pay their house and car payment, etc. like the rest of us do. People who have never run a business don't understand that there are many hidden costs that must be taken into account to make sure that you are offering a price that is affordable to the customer, but is enough to not only break even, but to make a profit. When you run a business, you must make a profit in order to have extra cash available for emergencies, as well as to replace things as they wear out. You also must make a profit to continue to make improvements to your business, to offer more services/products to your customers. It isn't as simple as dividing so many gallons of milk into the cost of feed. Running a business and selling products to other people requires far more money that it takes to own your own cow and drink the milk yourself.

My husband, many of his childhood friends, and several people I've worked with all grew up drinking raw milk and were of exceptionally good health in their youth. Heck, one of the leading cardiologists in the country stated on the news that the ONLY milk he'd recommend people drink is fresh raw milk because of the beneficial bacteria.

If we lived in a less arid environment and had a bit more properly I would most definitely have a milk cow, and maybe even some milk goats. I kind of miss drinking milk.

Funny how wholesome food turns out to be good for you.

 

[Beer can]

WOW! got done quoting...too many...deleted it... I'll just ramble on and try to remember what I had to say Lol!.
Salt fish is way different than pickled fish, I've ate pickled fish many times, love it just have never made it myself which is way cheaper. My great-grampa used to eat salt cod in a wood box, always wanted to try it just haven't yet. They do sell it in grocery stores. If I remember right he soaked the fish in water, rinsed, soaked, rinsed, made a gravy out of it and ate it on toast.
Ron, I'll definitely check out that Netflix show you mentioned, I've mentioned this here before but I recommend 'Food Inc', put it off because I figured it was political propaganda, wasn't, good one to watch. Desertchic, there was part of food inc that talked about grass fed beef, virtually no bad bacteria (listeria maybe?) in grass fed beef compared to grain fed. Not on food inc, grass fed beef has higher levels of good cholesterol and lower levels of bad.
FYI, I live in dairy country, work at a dairy plant, learned a lot about our food. I started on the beginning of the process, now am on the tail end, had almost every job here now, was day off and weekend, vacation relief for awhile, had to know all jobs. Tail end, the whey, I right now run a reverse osmosis system that takes the whey from 4% to 15%, then a humongous evaporation system that takes it to 40% solids, load it on trailers, spend 7hrs a day on my butt occasionally pushing 'buttons' on a HMI screen, good job that no one wants to do cause it's very stressful Lol! When things go wrong, goes wrong quick and bad....got to hear it and feel it, and be quick on your toes, computers suck when things go wrong.
They condensed whey used to go to a pharmaceutical plant, dehydrated it further to powder and used it for coatings on pills, they went out of business. Now some loads go to farms for land spread fertilizer, some go to a place for 'animal feed'. The pharmaceutical plant I was told when I was in milk receiving, driver that went there said when he was unloading a super stinky trailer was there, "what is that", slaughter house remnants, spleens, blood, etc, "what do you do with it?", make it into a powder, it's the beef protein on the label in all soups you buy.....
On the tail end now, many loads of 'animal feed' later I asked the driver what animals do they feed it to? "I took a tour of the place, they get all out of date food from all stores, bread, donuts, ring dings and ho hos, candy, boxed macaroni and cheese, pasta, anything you can imagine in a store, swirling in their mixer, shredding and chopped up, buckets and boxes and bags, supposedly they get the plastic out, then they spread it on a huge floor and add your Gus's whey, dehydrates, they bust it up and load it." load it to feed what? (I was thinking maybe a dog food plant), "Beef feed lots out west"....wow, they feed them candy....

Beginning of process, milk intake, loved the job had it for yrs, I personally checked the milk for antibiotics and bacteria. The driver takes a sample that is put in a little refrigerator and that is what the farmer is paid for, butterfat, protein and the grade is depending on the cleanliest, bacteria. I have seen loads rejected for both antibiotics and bacteria yrs ago, now it's rare, very rare. The majority of the milk we take in day after day, week after week, many months I can look in that microscope checking for DMC, and see nothing, no 'bugs', raw milk is pretty safe. Many drivers have their own jug in their sample cooler, drink it, say they grew up on it. The smell of raw milk in thousands of gallons soo sweet, never tired from smelling it, you don't smell it from a jug or a glass.
My DW grew up on raw milk, they always had a couple milk cows and milked them themselves, bred them with the beef they raised, doesn't matter what you breed them with to get milk. I worked a bluestone quarry yrs ago on a dairy farm that bred their cows with white faced black Herefords, at the time they were getting $5 a calf, not even worth trucking them.
I don't know how they keep going besides it's all they know. Recently milk was at a all time high after yrs of nothing, when it was at a low, very low, a big dairy company posted recorded profits....not ours but nearby. I've personally witnessed price manipulation, the ones that are marketing milk for farmers in bed with the factories, crazy stuff, no rhyme nor reason other than someone is making $$ other than the farmer. Milk is at a downside now, again. We Americans could feed the earth with what we are capable of, politics gets in the way, special interests and lobbyists fund them.....

 

[Beer can]

Little Monsanto fact;

 

[stryker]

I love goats milk but it has to be fresh and ice cold.

True.. cows milk is more tough.

 

[abbevilleoz]

Little Monsanto fact;

Any special fish you use? I like pickled pigs feet, not sure about fish. Looks like Monsanto rules!

 

[CanadianBuckeye]

Bayer recently bought Monsanto for $ 66 billion ($128 a share).