A while back Lambert asked me to contribute a series on butter and cheese making. I got distracted with real life (PhD finshing) and so put it off for a bit, but decided this rainy morning was a good time to start. My favorite doe, Miss Mack, gave birth to 3 doelings late last night, and I’m still up from the excitement of that. For about the first 10 or 12 hours after they are born, I have to check on them every 90 minutes or so. Can’t help myself. They are cuteness personified. Anyway…  Read more 

Some people prefer milk from cows which have not been given hormones, specifically recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST. Other people don’t give a shit or have never heard of the issue and just get the cheapest cow squeezins’ they see in the dairy case. But if you as a dairyman choose not to use these hormones, shouldn’t you have a right to put a label on your milk bottles saying so?

Not in Pennsylvania you don’t. Because it makes other milk producers, who do use hormones, products look bad. Via the Allentown Morning Call:

The state Department of Agriculture is delaying ordering dairy farmers to stop labeling their products as free of an artificial hormone until it does more research on the controversial supplement injected into cows to boost milk production.

Last month, Pennsylvania became the first state to announce it was putting an end to milk sold with a label indicating it is free of a genetically engineered growth hormone. It gave the 19 farmers who do not use recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST, until Jan. 1 to remove any variation of that wording from their milk containers.

The farmers will now have until Feb. 1 to comply.Opponents from Pennsylvania and across the nation flooded the agency with calls and e-mails, prompting Gov. Ed Rendell to delay the implementation by a month.

Hmm, weren’t we told that didn’t work and never made any difference? But back on topic, let’s look at the “state’s” take on the matter:  Read more