Do we vaccinate our animals? It's not a simple answer. Here's the honest truth.

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posted on

March 3, 2023

*Originally published on 11/25/22 and updated on 3/3/23.

One of the top customer questions we get is, “Do you vaccinate your animals?” I wish the answer was simple. I wish it was a direct yes or no, but it’s more complicated than that.

**We have never routinely vaccinated our animals.**

When animals eat a natural diet and live outdoors with plenty of fresh air and sunshine, there is little worry about disease. They are naturally healthy.

But, there have been a couple circumstances that led to our animals getting a vaccine.

This is, of course, not ideal. But, you deserve to know everything about your food so you can make educated decisions about what your family consumes.

1- We bought an animal from another farm. And, the farmer did not know his animals were vaccinated.

Vets will often vaccinate without asking permission. If the farmer doesn’t watch closely and keep his records organized, this can go under the radar. This is especially true when you buy in animals.

We actually had a problem with this in 2019. Farmer Aaron had bought in cows from a local farm years earlier, and one cow was still shedding RB51, the vaccine strain of brucellosis. The issue was completely resolved quickly, and you can learn more about the RB51 situation here.

2- There was a disease in a herd or flock, and we believed that immunization was the only solution to prevent death and suffering.

Listen, we care deeply about our animals and try to raise them as naturally as possible. But, in the rare case that a deadly disease infects our animals, and there is no natural remedy to tackle it, then we will turn to conventional medicine. We want to ensure the best life for our animals.

This happened about a little over a year ago. Farmer Aaron’s brother David started a second dairy farm for us. And, as with any new operation, there were some challenges. One of those challenges was bovine pneumonia. He quickly decided to vaccinate his cows to prevent death and suffering. He didn’t think there was another option.

FYI - The vaccine used on these cows was the Inforce3® Respiratory Vaccine. It’s an “old fashioned” vaccine (NOT mRNA) that’s made with a modified live virus (AKA a GMO virus). It’s an intranasal vaccine; that means it’s NOT injected but put in the cow’s nose. Keep in mind that there is a difference between injection and ingestion (more on that below).

Side note: None of the cows on our main farm are vaccinated. This is where all of our bottled milk comes from.

This is the honest truth. Since this blog post was originally published in November 2022, we got such insightful and passionate feedback from our customers. It really made Farmer Aaron think.

This is our hard stance:

NO MORE VACCINES, and definitely NO mRNA vaccines. We will be 100% vaccine-free by 2025.

A few notes on this:

If bovine pneumonia ever becomes an issue again, we’ll use a radically old fashioned, natural remedy - vinegar and red pepper. It seems to work just as well as the vaccine. The cows don’t “like” it, but I suppose it’s better than pneumonia. They put a mixture of vinegar and red pepper in the infected cow’s mouth. It seems to clear symptoms within a day or two.
Farmer David will slowly sell any cows that received a vaccine, and we will be 100% vaccine free by 2025. We don’t want any animals that have had vaccines. The process has already started, and we should be vaccine free by 2025.
And, along these same lines, we say NO to mRNA vaccines. This stands for ALL the farms we work with. We are a community of natural farms that says no to GMOs (and much more), why would we be ok GMO-ing our animals? mRNA vaccines are a hard no for us.

Let’s put this into perspective. There is a stark difference between what I explained above and the routine immunization practices used on conventional farms, even organic conventional farms.

There’s no pretty chart with a livestock immunization schedule, like the one from the CDC for human children. But, I did a little digging, and here are the vaccines that vets may recommend:

Cattle

Rota-Coronavirus
Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR)
Parainfluenza Virus 3 (PI3)
Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD)
Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus (BRSV)
7 Way Blackleg - 1 dose
Pasturella
Pinkeye
Brucellosis (Bangs)
5 Way Lepto
Camplyobacter

Pigs

Atrophic Rhinitis
Erysipelas
Mycoplasma Pneumonia
Actinobacillus Pleuropneumoniae

Broiler Chickens

Marek’s disease
Newcastle disease
Infectious bronchitis
Infectious Bursal Disease

Laying Hens

Marek’s disease
Newcastle disease
Infectious bronchitis
Infectious Bursal Disease
Encephalomyelitis
Fowlpox
Laryngotracheitis
Mycoplasma gallisepticum

Turkeys

Newcastle disease
Hemorrhagic enteritis
Fowl cholera
Erysipelas

As with childhood vaccines, most livestock immunizations call for many doses within the first year, and then an annual dose each year thereafter.

So, for example, beef cattle could get a specific vaccine 4 times in their first year, and then 1 annual shot, for a total of 5 injections for one disease before harvest. According to my calculations, an average conventional beef cow would get about 30 shots before you eat it.

Really what’s going on here is two different thought processes, two different ways of being and farming.

On the one hand, we have naturally raised animals who rarely get sick. This is because they eat a natural diet and have plenty of exercise and space and fresh air. Animals raised this way do not need routine vaccinations. This is how Miller's does it.

On the other hand, there are conventionally raised animals who are likely to get sick without intervention. This is because they eat an unnatural diet, primarily corn and soy. They live in crowded living spaces, often indoors. They’re not able to exercise or breathe really fresh air. Animals raised this way would not produce food or survive without routine vaccinations and antibiotics.

There’s so much to consider here. These two different ways of farming exist for a reason. The cost of food, varying income levels, profit for big businesses, farmers' contracts with distributors, the cost for farmers to build new facilities or buy land, damage that’s already been done to the soil, etc.

It’s also important to note that there is a difference between injection and ingestion.

Some vaccines for livestock are oral or nasal and some are by injection. First off, with an oral vaccine, the cow has a more natural immune response. And second, no matter what, if you eat (or ingest) food produced from a vaccinated animal, whatever would pass to you is through digestion.

Your body has an amazing and complex system for removing toxins that you drink or eat or breathe in. Most of this work is done by your kidneys, which filter toxins so you can excrete them in urine.

On the other hand, when you inject something into your body, like many vaccines, it goes straight into your bloodstream. Your body is not designed to remove toxins in the bloodstream as well as those in your digestive system.

No matter which way toxins enter, your body can only detox so much. It can only handle a certain amount of toxins. It’s like filling a cup with water. The cup can only hold a certain amount of water. Once the water reaches the brim, it cannot handle any more.

Miller’s Bio Farm aims to provide you with clean foods, and this means limiting toxins as much as possible. But, we are not perfect. That’s why we add honest disclosures to our products.

What do you think about vaccinations in animals? Are you comfortable consuming vaccinated animals? What about if they are minimally vaccinated?

I’d love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required - start typing for the guest option to appear) or contact us.

Farming Practices

Opinion

Health and Nutrition

Pastured Meat

Raw Dairy

Warning: Fat Holds Toxins. Carnivore and keto folks should watch out.

Aaron, myself, and a couple other team members went to Tennessee to participate in Meatstock 2025 last weekend. It's a carnivore/keto party in the Smoky Mountains. Boy, we learned a lot and met a lot of wonderful people, both people who healed through food as well as doctors and experts that help people heal. One person we had the pleasure of meeting was the amazing Dr. Kiltz. He's a carnivore. He's also a doctor who specializes in fertility. And can you guess how he helps many of his patients? Yup, through food. He's a big supporter of the carnivore and keto diets. He suggests getting 70-80% of your calories from fat, 15-30% from protein, and 0-10% from carbs. Dr. Kiltz spoke at a dinner we attended. And something he said shocked us -- "Don't worry about grass fed, regenerative, and all that natural stuff. It's the fact that you're eating fat that matters." 😳 Woah woah woah. Hold up a sec. We, of course, had a conversation with Dr. Kiltz about this. I mean, why are people having health issues in the first place? Sure, some of it could be genetics. Some of it's definitely environmental. But, a lot of it is likely the food we're eating. It's processed food laden with seed oils and carbs and sugar and yucky additives... but also the farming practices that result in toxic stuff hidden in plain old ingredients. Dr. Kiltz agreed and elaborated on his statement. What he's saying is that, if you're eating a standard American diet, the biggest and fastest impact you can make comes from altering your diet on a macro level - fat, protein, and carbs. But the granular stuff you can't see or count matters too, especially once you're making progress. OK, I get it. But then I thought some more... Toxins accumulate in the fat. So, if you eat animal-based foods (especially the fattier ones) and are looking to limit (or eliminate) that awful toxic stuff, farming practices matter. Like a lot! So, unsurprisingly, I went into research mode. Here's what I learned. Which toxins accumulate in fat and why? Not all toxins accumulate in fat. Some are stored in bone, muscle, organs, etc. But, there are certain toxins that a body stores specifically in fat. They include: Dioxins and furans (PCDDs/PCDFs) - These are persistent pollutants, resistant to breakdown, that are generally creating by burning things like plastic and chemicals and garbage. They can also be created as byproducts of industrial processes.PCBs - That's short for polychlorinated biphenyls, which are synthetic chemicals that were used to make various consumer products, from paint to glues to lubricants to coolants to batteries. They were banned in 1979, but because of their inability to breakdown, they remain as toxins in our environment.Pesticides & Herbicides - This includes previously banned pesticides (like DDT) that are still present in our environment. This also includes pesticides used today, like organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides. Certain Toxic Heavy Metals - Mercury, lead, cadmium, and aluminum are known for accumulating in fat. The reason the above toxins collect specifically fat (AKA adipose tissue) is because they are lipophilic. Liophilic is when a substance is "fat loving" and can bond with or dissolve in fat. Other toxins are hydrophilic, meaning they are "water loving" and can bond with and dissolve in water. These include bentazone, glyphosate, imidacloprid, flouride, and arsenic. They do not accumulate in fat. What can an overload of toxins do to your body? I like to think about toxic overload like a cup. Our bodies can process a little of it. But, when the cup is overfilled with stuff like pesticides, toxic heavy metals, mold, carcinogens, etc, that's when problems happen. Our bodies are pretty good at handling stress. That's why toxic overload can be confusing. It may take a long time - months, years, or decades - for the problem to arise. Then, once the problem happens, it's hard to pinpoint the cause. And then, healing time is often lengthy (and sometimes the damage can't completely be undone). When it comes to toxins, the response really depends on the body. The list of issues that can arise is exhaustive. They include fatigue, headaches, digestive problems and leaky gut, brain fog, anxiety and depression, increased risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, hormone imbalance, mast cell overreaction, histamine responses, bloating and inflammation, trouble sleeping, skin conditions, liver damage, obesity, and more. Where can toxins in animal-based foods come from? When it comes to farming, there are few places that toxins can be introduced to animals. This can be from toxins resistant to breaking down from decades ago or toxins being used or produced today. This can be on the actual farms or in the facilities that prepare food for sale: Air: Toxins can vaporize and float in the air. Animals can breathe it in or it can settle on top of soil or water. Water: This is especially true with city water, which often has chemicals added to it or may run through old pipes. But, as we all know, water pollution varies from area to area.Soil: This can come from the local area or a non-farming activity that happened on the land previously. This can also be from past farming practices or current ones. Slaughter and butchering: Did you know an antimicrobial is required by the USDA when processing meat? Processors can choose harsh chemicals like bleach or opt for more natural ones like citric or lactic acids or vinegar.Recipes: Think beef jerky or lunchmeat. They have ingredients. First off, anything that's less than 1% doesn't need to be listed on the package. And then, of course, there's the hidden stuff depending on the quality of the ingredient.Packaging: Even what our food comes in can leach chemicals into our food. I mean, think about microplastics in bottled water! When toxins enter your food, you can't see them. You can't taste them. You can't smell them. This is why knowing more about how your food is produced is important. How can farming practices decrease the levels of toxins? Well, there are bunch of ways toxins can get into food from farming. Here are some ways that farms can decrease toxins in the final food: Choose A Clean Location: If a farm is located right next to or downstream from a factory or city, toxin levels will likely increase. Farms should ideally be far from cities or factories. Have Clean Water: If contamination is persistent in your area, you'll likely know it. And, you can always test the water, too.Improve Soil Health With Regenerative Farming: When soil is dead and unhealthy, toxins break down at their normal speed. But, with regenerative farming that creates robust microbiology, toxins can break down faster.Fertilize Naturally: There are plenty of chemical fertilizers out there. But, compost and manure from natural chemical-free sources are just as good… if not better.Limit, Eliminate, Be Considerate With Pesticide And Herbicide Use: A grand majority of farms still use pesticides and herbicides regularly. Yeesh. Even the organic ones can contain yucky stuff. With things like fruit, it's kinda necessary to some extent. But, especially with pasture raised animals, they're simply not needed (even though some farms still choose it).Choose Naturally Formulated Feed: This is the idea of the ingredients in the ingredients. You can have the most pristine land, air, and water, raising beef. But, if you feed them GMO corn sprayed with glyphosate and grown in contaminated soil... well... those toxins are introduced. Farms can make sure they're feed ingredients are pure and the sources the ingredients come from are chemical-free.Eliminate Vaccines: Yup, vaccines contain toxins. And especially when injected, they can harbor themselves in fat. Aluminum is a common ingredient in vaccines. And, did you know that animal vaccines can contain Thimerosal (AKA mercury)? That's been banned in human vaccines. When animals are raised outdoors and to be naturally happy and healthy, vaccines aren't necessary.Be Mindful With Anyone Who Processes Your Food: This can be a challenge, especially if you're in an area with more conventional farms. Farms can ask the hard questions and ask for changes like what antimicrobials are used (apple cider vinegar is allowed by the USDA), what the ingredients are, and where the ingredients are sourced from. At Miller's Bio Farm, we try to reduce your toxic intake as much as possible. Here's a few notable things we do (among the many): All of our small farms are 60+ miles from any major city.Our pastures are never sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. We love the biodiversity!Our pastures are fertilized with manure and more manure!Our farms that raise our animals regenerate their soil year after year. The idea is to improve the quality of the soil, and that includes the microbes that can help break down toxins.Clean well water is used for the animals to drink and for processing our meat and all of our products. Our beef, pork, and lamb are washed with organic apple cider vinegar. Our chicken is air chilled. Our turkey is washed with water and only water.None of our animals are fed corn or soy. And, our feed is chemical-free.Our farmers do not vaccinate their animals. Our chicken and turkey and lamb is 100% vaccine free. The only way a vaccine could be given to a cow or pig is if the animal was bought in and previously vaccinated. We make sure that no animal has received an mRNA vaccine. None of our products have yucky stuff like nitrates/nitrites, additives, fillers, etc. It's simple natural food. We always vet our processors before working with them to make sure they're up to our natural standards. We'd love to supply you with clean foods and hope you join the movement! Do you eat a lot of fat? Whether you do or not, what toxins make you most worried? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below or contact us 😊 ----- References: Carnivore Diet Macros and How to Achieve ThemAdipose Tissue as a Site of Toxin Accumulation Pesticide residues in animal-derived food: Current state and perspectives Impact of pesticide exposure on adipose tissue development and function10 Powerful Nutrients Found Only in Meat

Does varying yolk color affect the flavor of honest eggs?

As you know, we don't add any color to our feed. This is why our pastured corn & soy free eggs are called "honest yolk eggs". "Color" includes unnatural stuff like dyes as well as natural stuff like marigold and paprika. Nearly all egg farmers nowadays do this... even the natural ones. Why? People demand consistent color yolks, thinking it means a certain quality. Little do most know, yolk color is superficial now. At Miller's, we know this for a fact. Curiosity made us to send our eggs for testing, and there was zero nutritional difference in our orange vs yellow yolk eggs. What mattered most was the farming practices and quality of the feed, and our eggs came out on top for most tests. We really love having varying yolk color. It's an indicator of what the birds are eating. It tells our farmers how their pasture is doing. If the plants are too mature, not diverse enough, it's too wet or dry, or if chickens aren't eating the pasture, we'll see that with the yolk color! Now, we've had an array of responses since we removed the color from our feed. One baffling one is --- the light colored yolks don't taste as good as the dark colored yolks. Is this true? I mean, removing the color is only a superficial change. It shouldn't affect the flavor. Well, we needed to find out. So... we did a blind tasting on the farm a few weeks ago. Here's what that looked like: The results? The whole team agreed -- all eggs tasted the same! The biggest factor affecting egg flavor was the yolk to white ratio. The more yolk, the more flavor. It's spring, and our hens are out on pasture 100% of the time. An egg develops for about 6 weeks inside a chicken, so it takes some time. But... you should start to see darker yolks now. Have you noticed a change in yolk color? Have you noticed a flavor change? Would you prefer consistent colored yolks or honest yolks? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below or contact us 😊 PS: The egg shortage is 100% over, and we have plenty of eggs now!! That means egg bundles are back!

See a volcano of pickles! The pluses and minuses of natural ferments.

A customer shared his farm food order with us on Instagram. Thanks for sharing, Nick! It included this amazing video of the volcano that can erupt from our fermented pickles: What's going on here? Why so many bubbles? Conventional pasteurized vinegar pickles (you know, the kind that are considered "normal") don't bubble at all. What you're seeing is the fermentation. When fermented pickles are made, it's a very simple process. The following is mixed in a jar: Cucumbers, well water, celery seed, mustard seed, dill, garlic, Celtic sea salt, and whey. Then, the jar sits with a loose lid for 3-7 days, until it's done fermenting. The seeds and herbs are in there for flavor only. The cucumbers, water, salt, and whey are what make the magic happen. Note that there is no powdered culture added. Yes, whey is added and it has probiotics, but it simply helps jumpstart the ferment. Even without the whey, those pickles would ferment. It would just take a little longer. This is because raw veggies naturally have lactic acid bacteria (LAB) in them. When you mix them with water and salt, it creates the perfect environment for them to grow. Pretty cool, right? The living microbiology (the LAB) grow and multiply. They eat the naturally occurring sugars and starches in the cucumbers and produce CO2, a gas. The fermentation carbonated the pickle brine! The fermentation made the volcano! It's also a sure sign that there's plenty of good probiotic stuff for your gut in that jar. The white stuff is yeast (most likely KAHM yeast). Another thing to notice in the jar is how the liquid is whitish, not clear. There's nothing unsafe about it. Yes, you can eat it! It's a natural part of fermentation. You see, KAHM yeast thrives in acidic environments. As that probiotic goodness ferments and creates CO2, it also creates lactic acid. The lactic acid not only gives pickles their distinct sour flavor but also makes the brine acidic. KAHM yeast is naturally in the air. It will land on a ferment and think "Gee, this would be a great home." And then it grows. It typically makes a film on the top of a ferment, but it can also sink to the bottom. With volcanic pickles, it gets all mixed up in the brine and will eventually settle. Fermented veggies are an acquired taste. Nick, who shared the volcanic pickles video, reported that: "The pickles are absolutely delicious. I love them!" But... we sometimes get complaints about the flavor of the pickles and the white stuff. Is Nick's palate simply more accustomed to ferments? Were some jars of pickles actually off? It's really hard to say... especially when you're not there smelling and tasting it yourself. What I do know is that fermented veggies are an acquired taste. They're very different from the distinct pasteurized vinegar pickle flavor you likely grew up with. Fermented pickles have umami to them (think about that "weird" flavor in miso or a very sharp aged cheese). They have a lot of tang. They can even taste metallic. Some may feel a burn on their tongue (that's the lactic acid by the way). You may want to try making some at home (as I said before, it's pretty easy). That way, you can taste the flavor throughout the fermentation process and put it in the fridge when you think they're just right. Fermented veggies can last months in the fridge with proper maintenance. Here are a few tips to keep them in their best shape. Always store in the fridge. This will slow down the fermentation so they don't get overdone. If you leave them on the counter (especially pickles), they'll get quite sour and mushy pretty quickly. Never freeze ferments. They'll just get mushy. Make sure the veggies are always covered with brine. If the brine falls below the veggies, simply add more water and sea salt. So easy! If the veggies aren't covered, they can grow mold or dry out and become yucky. If there's too much KAHM yeast, remove it. KAHM yeast is perfectly safe to eat. However, it can have an off-putting flavor, especially when there's too much. If it's on the top of the brine, simply scoop it off. If it's all mixed up in the brine, let the jar sit for a day or two so it settles. Once it sinks to the bottom of the jar, you can remove the pickles and clean brine (leaving the white stuff at the bottom), clean the jar, and then put the pickles and brine back in. Voila! With this in mind, you might be wondering... Can ferments become unsafe? If a lacto-fermented veggie goes wrong, it will be pretty obvious. It may have a repulsive smell, flashy colors (like pink or black mold), or a foul flavor. While a normal ferment should have a sour, tangy smell, a bad ferment will smell putrid or rotten. This can be a little tricky, especially if you're new to ferments. The flavor can be wild! Often you simply need to trust your gut. Although getting used to ferments can take some time and know how, it's worth it. Why? They're just so darn good for your gut. They're packed with a range of lactic acid bacteria. Fermented veggies usually have bifidobacteria, too, which isn't prevalent in fermented dairy but is crucial for healthy digestion. When you have robust and healthy gut microbiology: The bad stuff simply can't grow. You're less likely to get sick. Your digestion is better overall, meaning that you get max nutrition from the food you eat.Your gut can better produce essential nutrients like short-chain fatty acids and vitamins B1, B9, B12, and K.You can experience less inflammation.Your gut-brain connection is better. You may find yourself in a better mood, with less stress. There's probably so much more, but those are the top ones for me! Do you eat or make ferments? Why or why not? Have you tried the pickles? What's your experience? I'd love to hear from you! Comment below (no account required - start typing for the guest option to appear) or contact us.