FOR THE LOVE OF JERSEY COWS

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Our love of dairying began in the mid-1980's, when we bought our first Jersey cow, Fairlight. We milked her by hand, and reveled in the pleasure of drinking our own fresh milk and eating butter and cheeses made in our farmhouse kitchen. As time passed, we purchased more Jerseys and began our own Grade A dairy where we eventually milked 26 Jerseys and sold our milk on the commodity market. It was a happy time in our first years of farming - a time we are ready to relive as we introduce Greenwood Farms Raw Milk.

In keeping with our commitment to produce healthy foods, raised in harmony with nature, all of our dairy products are made from raw milk that is free from antibiotics, hormones, and the other chemicals commonly found in store-bought dairy products.

Our nine Jersey cows (Cello, Piper, Jelly, Rommie, Tracie, Brazzy, Nattie, Sammy, and Karen)  eat fresh, green grass all summer and leafy alfalfa hay in winter as well as all-natural grain to help them maintain their milk production. Our  two heifers (Annabelle, and Viola) get their mother's milk and free-choice grain to help them grow strong. They are part of our family and we treat them like the queens they are.

We milk using a bucket milking system, set up in our spotless milking stanchion. Our experience running a Grade A dairy in the 1980's taught us the importance of cleanliness in the milk house and we maintain those same standards today. We use a four-step sanitizing and cleaning routine that keeps our milk as fresh and healthy as it can be.

Last year, we had our milk quality tested at a laboratory in New York state. We sent a sample of ten-day-old skimmed milk (we sent skimmed, because the more milk is handled, the more potential there is for bacterial growth) and the results were spectacular! In the state of Missouri, Grade A milk is tested for the following:

Coliform Bacteria - rod-shaped Gram-negative organisms which ferment lactose with the production of gas when incubated at 35 °C. In most instances, coliforms themselves are not the cause of sickness, but they are easy to culture and their presence is used to indicate that other pathogenic organisms may be present. E. Coli is one of the primary coliform bacteria of concern.

SPC Count - The raw count, or SPC, is a determination of the total number of bacteria present in the sample being tested. In most systems it does not provide information regarding which species of bacteria may be involved. Some bacteria is present in all milk, so the key is to keep bacterial growth to a minimum.

Lab Pasteurized Count or LPC. This test determines how many bacteria are present that survive pasteurization at 145 degrees F for 30 minutes. Such bacteria are typically found in soil and often form what are termed spores. A spore is a bacterial survival mechanism that is resistant to many agents including sanitizers, that normally kill growing bacteria quickly. When they enter the bulk milk they may survive normal pasteurization processes and cause problems post-pasteurization.
 

Here is how our milk scored:

We feel this is great validation of our commitment to cleanliness in our dairy operation.  We will continue to test our milk on a regular basis, to insure that we are meeting the high standards we set for ourselves.