Trillium Hill Farm, llc

The milk that comes from our goats is incredibly nutritious and incredibly delicious, and we encourage you to give goats milk a try.  In almost all cases, people who taste it say “wow! it tastes just like milk!” (wherein they mean cow milk).  We think our milk is the best we’ve ever tasted, period.

To learn more about purchasing our milk, click here.

We contribute the high quality of our milk to three main factors: 1) The health and diet of our animals, 2) handling of the milk, and 3) the fact that we do not pasteurize (cook) the milk.

Animal Health

First and foremost, you must have a healthy animal to have great-tasting milk. If the animal has an unhealthy udder or immune system, there is likely to be higher loads of bacteria in the milk, and if chronic, could lead to off-flavored milk.

We do not treat our animals (or anything on our farm, for that matter) with antibiotics, hormones, or conventional medicines– except as a last resort. We believe that overall health is directly related to diet and environment and thus we first try to foster an ideal environment for our goats in terms of diet and housing. Secondly we use foods and herbs to keep immune systems up and to heal, if necessary.

We, of course, are constantly learning and do not pretend to know everything about goat health. We rely on area vets to guide us in this learning process and we read lots of books!

Handling the Milk

We often hear from people that they don’t like goats milk because it is “so goaty!” We believe that the over-powering “goat” flavor of conventional and/or pasteurized goat milk comes from improper handling of the milk. While some “goat flavor” will probably be present in goats milk (just like “cow flavor” is present in cows milk), it should never be overpowering or off-putting. If it is, it is probably the fault of the milk being too old, or  it was not cooled quickly enough after the milk was harvested.

After milking, we immediately cool the milk. All milk has an amazing ability to absorb scents and thus we do not keep a buck near where we milk, and we cool and cap the milk as soon as it is out of the goat. The milk is then filtered, continues to cool, and then is set out for sale that day. Unpasteurized goat milk will keep for about a week without getting too “goaty,” and several of our customers have found no difference in the milk flavor or quality after three weeks.

“Raw,” “Farm-Fresh,” or “Unpasteurized” Milk

We are not doctors or nutritionists and so we can only speak from experience when we say that raw milk is good for you. We have both lived most of our lives with digestive and dietary troubles, and have both found relief and renewal from drinking the fresh milk that our goats produce.

Pasteurization is the process of cooking milk, and just like when you cook any food, you lose some of the nutritional value of the food. We do not think that pasteurized milk is essentially, bad, and if all milk was unpasteurized we would likely have some health issues on our hands (as not all farms live up to the standards a raw dairy should keep).

If you decide that raw milk is for you, I would definitely urge you to seek out a farm/farmer that you feel confident keeps a clean and healthy herd of animals. Visit the Rural Vermont website for more information on farm fresh milk.