June 2025

We made some lovely hay just before the rain came! The grass was cut, then over the following 3 days it was 'tedded out' which means the grass was spread and turned over so the sunshine could dry it out. The dried grass was rowed up ready for the baler to bale it into 6ft-long bales of hay, each weighing about half a tonne. We moved them from the fields into the barn, where they'll be kept nice and dry. Really pleased to have made the hay in the sunshine and got them stored safely in the barn before it rained. The hay we've made should be enough to feed our calves this winter.

Sour Raw Milk

The hot weather is a challenge to stop raw milk from souring earlier. When milk comes from the cow, it already contains lactobacillus bacteria. These are good bacteria, they are great for our health and microbiome; we need them! Our milk is chilled down to under 4ºC as soon as possible after milking, so that the small population of lactobacillus present doesn't grow. They are inactive at these cold temperatures. If raw milk gets any warmth, these good bacteria become active, and by eating the lactose milk sugar, they grow as a population, making the raw milk even more probiotic. However, as they do this, when they use the lactose for their growth in numbers, they convert the lactose to lactic acid. This means the milk sugar is depleted, and the amount of lactic acid increases, so the milk goes from being a fresh lactose sweet milk, to a sour lactic acid milk. Whilst the milk therefore changes its taste, it is still nutritionally fine, as the lactic acid pickles and preserves the milk in acid (just as you use acid to pickle onions).  In fact, historically in hot countries, people knew that when raw milk turned sour, it was safer and still nutritionally good, as the acidity would kill bad pathogen bacteria. Indeed, pathogenic bacteria cannot survive at a pH below 4.7, whereas the good guys, lactobacillus, can! So you can still use raw milk if it turns sour, although you may not like the soured taste. Use it in mashed potato, scrambled egg, soup, or just as you would sour cream. Raw soured milk is more probiotic than fresh raw milk, indeed it becomes like the cultured probiotic milk drink called kefir. Great for your gut health!

The best way to prevent your raw milk from turning sour, is temperature control, i.e. keeping the milk as cold as possible (under 4ºC). Please put a cool box/bag out with ice in it to keep your milk cold when it is delivered. Please also keep your milk at the back of your fridge, as this is the coldest part of your fridge; the fridge door is the warmest place in your fridge! Check your fridge temperature too. You may assume that because it is a fridge it is running at under 4ºC, but it may not be!