- Are antibiotics or hormones used on the cows?
It is unlawful to use antibiotics in lactating dairy cattle that will give rise to violable levels of antimicrobial drugs. All tanker truckloads of milk are tested in all processing plants for violable residues. Contaminated milk cannot be used for fluid or processing milk purposes. The financial penalties are severe and dairy producers have redundant management schemes in place to assure that residues do not occur. USDA and FDA statutes prohibit use of antibiotics as a feed supplement in lactating dairy cattle. 4Life's inquiry revealed that the dairy farms that produce raw colostrum for processing do not use hormones intended to increase milk production, including BST. Although it may be virtually impossible for any substance to make it through our stringent extraction and manufacturing process, this policy has been developed to address any concerns that our customers may have. If a cow is sick and must have antibiotics, the cow is removed from the line until no antibiotics are found in its system.
