EAST CORINTH — On a bi-monthly basis, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, or VAAFM, samples and tests milk from each of the 450 dairy farms in Vermont in an effort to prevent the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Dairy Farm Inspector Jessica Waterman is responsible for testing about 20 farms for the Agency of Agriculture, including at Newmont Farm in Bradford, Vt., and Fort Waite Farm in East Corinth.
For Will Gladstone of Newmont Farm, the sampling process has been seamless, posing no interruption to their work, he said. With outbreaks in other areas in the country making cows sick, he is happy to comply with preventative testing.
“We’re all about screening and making sure that safe practices are taking place and trying to help as much as anyone in the prevention of our state ever getting bird flu,” Gladstone said Monday by phone.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly referred to as HPAI or bird flu, is a viral disease often spread by wild birds that puts flocks of poultry at a fatal risk. About two years ago, the USDA detected cases of HPAI in Kansas and Texas dairy cattle, which posed additional concerns for milk, farm biosecurity and food supply.
A federal order by the USDA in April 2024 required milk testing for any interstate shipments. A subsequent order in December of that year strengthened this regulation to require milk sampling regardless of delivery location, including for in-state suppliers.
The USDA required bulk testing from tanker trucks collecting milk from multiple farms. If a sample of the milk from one of these trucks tests positive for HPAI, then the various farms that the supplier collected from are tested.
Vermont decided to take things a step further by testing every farm with animals producing milk for human consumption including cows, goats and sheep, said Waterman.
Newmont Farm is located at 161 Mallary Road in Bradford, Vt., with a satellite location just up the road at 386 Pratt Road. The farm is owned by Walt and Margaret Gladstone and their sons, Will and Matt Gladstone.
Newmont Farm has 1,800 Holstein cows and 1,600 heifers, according to the farm website.
Waterman has been an inspector for just over six years, but only started the milk sampling about a year ago due to the new USDA regulations.
While sampling from every dairy farm in Vermont used to be monthly, it decreased to once every two months starting in 2026, said Waterman. Some dairy inspectors in Vermont test as many as 65 farms in the two-month period. Others test only a couple. The number depends on the concentration of farms in the region.
In the past 30 days, the USDA confirmed HPAI in 80 flocks of birds across the country. The outbreak started in February 2022, and since then, over 205 million birds have been affected. Between the spring of 2022 and December of 2025, HPAI was detected in six Vermont flocks, including one in Windsor County in January of 2025, according to Agency of Agriculture news releases.
There have been no recorded bird flu outbreaks in cattle in Vermont, or in any of New England for that matter.
At every location, Waterman washes her rubber boots with an iodine-water solution to ensure that she is not bringing any pathogens on to the farm. Before walking into the milk house at Newmont Farm on Wednesday, Waterman left a note for the farmers to let them know know that she had been by.
With no bulk tank to sample from, Waterman uses a syringe to take a sample directly from the pipeline that moves the milk, which cools in the line before it is put into delivery trucks.
Some of the farm’s milk is saved and used to feed calves, said Waterman. The milk used to feed calves is pasteurized, similar to how commercial milk for human consumption is pasteurized. Pasteurization kills HPAI, Waterman explained, so there is not a major risk to humans.
“It is more of an animal health issue,” said Waterman.
For cows, bird flu often shows up as as a respiratory infection or as mastitis, which is an infection of the mammary gland, she said. Waterman puts her 12-mL samples in a tightly sealed vial, which is mailed at the end of each week to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York for testing.
The results are typically available the next day. When it comes to informing farmers of the results, no news is good news, Waterman said.
Before leaving, Waterman washed her boots again using the same iodine solution.
Just up the road at the Newmont North satellite location, milk is stored in a 7,000 gallon tank with a ladder attached. For this reason, Waterman must wait 10 minutes for the milk to agitate for a uniform consistency. For tanks under 1,500 gallons, she waits five minutes.
The final sampling stop for Waterman on Wednesday was to Fort Waite Farm on Cookville Road in East Corinth, which operates a robotic milking facility that their 250 cows can use at their own will. Each cow has a Fitbit-esque collar device tracking its behaviors and alerts the farmer of any concerns, such as less walking than normal.
Owners Elijah and Mary White were present with their two children as Waterman took the sample. While the process happens regularly and does not interrupt work on the farm, Elijah White said sampling could be done in a more cost effective way.
“I think what they’re doing is good, but I think they could be doing it in a way that uses less resources,” White said Wednesday after Waterman finished her sampling.
Specifically, since milk from Fort Waite Farm is already tested on a regular basis by the company they sell to, Agri-Mark, it would make more sense for the company to take a second sample for the USDA, said White.
When it comes to prevention, the Agency of Agriculture encourages farmers to monitor the movement of their poultry from one place to another, and do their best to keep wild birds off the farm.
“It’s hard to control wild birds. They kind of go where they want, but there are various efforts to try to keep them out of the free-stall barns,” said Waterman, referring to physical barriers installed by farmers such as netting.
Despite roadblocks in the beginning such as difficulty timing visits so that milk was available for sampling, Waterman feels that she is finding a routine with the farmers.
In the event of a positive test, protocol involves steps such as removing impacted milk from the stream of production, identifying the impacted heard and ensuring the health of animals is being addressed, said Scott Waterman, director of communications and policy at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets.
While HPAI does not translate to humans beyond mild infections, it’s still important to keep the disease out of Vermont in the interest of public safety.
“The concern we have and the concern USDA was addressing is making sure that HPAI doesn’t mutate into something that’s dangerous to humans,” Scott Waterman said Wednesday by phone.
CLARIFICATION: There have been no recorded avian bird flu outbreaks in cattle in Vermont or New England. The disease was detected in six Vermont bird flocks between the spring of 2022 and December of 2025. A previous version of this story was unclear about the disease’s presence in the state.