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Tell us a little about
yourself and your farm.
KEVIN: I've been a farmer for about 22 years.
I started out at about the age of 12 with one cow and when I got out
of school, I had about 25. Now we're at about 320—and
growing.
JOSEPH: I've been farming all my
life—for about 36 years. I grew up on a farm. My uncle and my dad
had a farm together. Then my dad bought my uncle out and I bought my
dad out. We always had 50 cows. Then, when we rebuilt, we went to 200
cows.
Why do you test your bulk
tank?
KEVIN: At our farm, we test with SNAP every
morning. Why? Economics, I guess, is one way to sum it up. With the
technical testing they have in the labs today, we don't like to take
the risk of contaminating a tank. We can't afford not to test on the
volume of milk we're working with. We just can't afford the
risk—the financial penalties and the risks to my reputation are
just too high.
As we grow in volume, and we install another tank, testing gets even
more important. We're looking at an every-other-day pickup schedule.
That throws our risk factor even higher with two days worth of milk in
each load. If a problem does sneak by us somewhere, we want to be sure
we don't contaminate 48 hours worth of milk.
JOSEPH: If you test, you know your load's
good and you don't have to worry. I don't want to buy somebody else's
load of milk—it's as simple as that. If I didn't have insurance,
and I didn't test, then I would risk having to pay for ruined milk out
of my own pocket. That could be a big setback.
What made you start
testing?
KEVIN: I had a contaminated load about four
years ago, and to this day we don't know what went wrong. We lost the
tank and got another 24-hour penalty on top of that, so it ended up
being a 48-hour penalty. The milk for the next 24 hours in our tank
was fine, but it still had to be dumped. Ever since then, we've been
testing. Back then, we just had to pay for our load. Today we'd be
responsible for the whole works.
JOSEPH: I never used to test. I should have
been doing it for years. It just gives you peace of mind. I got
caught—not intentionally, of course; no one wants to ship a contaminated
load—this was four or five years ago. And from then on, I've been
testing each load. When I built the new building, my veterinarian told
me, "You may have employees who may make a mistake. Testing is a good
insurance policy."
How has testing changed the
way you do business?
KEVIN: Peace of mind. When those loads go
down the road, I know I don't need to worry.
JOSEPH: I feel safer about using penicillin.
I'm not afraid to use it if I have to. The SNAP test is
quick—only ten minutes. And while I'm testing, I'm still doing
other things around the barn. It doesn't take any time at all and it's
convenient. It's part of my daily routine.
Why did you choose SNAP
tests?
KEVIN: The time factor was a big issue. Other
tests may be accurate, but they take two-and-a-half to three hours and
our window of time doesn't allow for that. We have about an hour
between the time the lorry gets here and the time we start milking
again, so it's a time issue.
JOSEPH: SNAP is quick. It's fast results.
That's the whole thing.
Do you find it easy to test
with SNAP devices?
KEVIN: It's gotten to be a routine. The first
one of us that gets here in the morning grabs a milk sample.
JOSEPH: SNAP is a product you don't really
need to question. It's straight-forward. The instructions are easy to
understand. It's all right there for you, the step-by-step process and
what to do and when to do it... I think it's done very well.
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