Inspection Time

Part of life on the dairy is being inspected. Since we produce a food product, we have to be inspected at least twice a year by the state inspector. We don't know when he's coming, typically it's in the January and July range, although it varies. This year we were also inspected by a federal inspector. He comes as part of an inspection of our milk plant. We were told he'd be here last Monday. I think he showed up on Friday.

The inspectors check things like the cleanliness of our milking equipment and parlor and a whole host of other things that you would think wouldn't matter, but do. They go through all our medications and make sure everything is labeled and that we don't have any medications in our barn that could be given to a lactating cow that shouldn't. We have to keep those medications (for steers, calves, etc.) in another location. Then of course there are the nit picky things like is the window on our screen door between the parlor and milk house closed? That's the one we usually get written up for. We typically leave it open for air flow reasons. Anywhoodle, we scored a 99 out of 100 which is as high as you can get. They will always find something to complain about. Our 1 point deduction actually came because the lean-to over the part of our bulk tank that is outside, was dirty. It used to be outside, but we were having water issues, so we covered it. Now it's random storage and is technically not part of the inspector's area to inspect. Oh well. If that's the worst he can find, good! My father-in-law actually cleaned it the other day.

We take a lot of pride in the cleanliness of our dairy. We've had a lot of people tell us it's the cleanest one they've seen. Our parlor and milking equipment gets cleaned after every milking. It takes time, but it's an important part of producing a quality product.