Got Poison Ivy? Grab a Glass of Goat's Milk

Tomorrow it will be spring…officially.

This warm weather already has life outdoors bursting into action. Flowers blooming, trees swelling with buds, bugs beginning to fly about…and will soon invade the landscape.

I am prone to . No need to touch it, or even see it, for that matter. It seeks me out. If it’s growing nearby, it will hunt me down and attack.

But not everyone is as “lucky” as I am. They have never, or rarely, experienced the redness, itchiness, puffiness and rash that spreads about the body. 

Some residents in have said that because they drank goat’s milk as a child they no longer get poison ivy. Some say they just get a mild case in the beginning of the year, and that’s it for the remainder of the poison ivy season.

This Old Wives’ Tale may have some truth to it; however, there is no scientific proof that drinking goat’s milk prevents poison ivy. The tale states that those who drink the raw milk of a goat that has eaten the poison ivy plant build up immunity to it and don’t get a reaction when exposed to it—or a very, very mild reaction.

Generally, the goat’s milk is given to very young children, so their immunity can start building up. Some people drink the milk all their lives, although most stop drinking it when they reach their teens.

One resident of Upper Milford who drank goat’s milk as a child is township manager, Dan DeLong. He has lived here most of his life, since the age of six.

“I don’t know if drinking goat’s milk really has anything to do with building immunity to the effects of exposure to poison ivy, but when I was a kid we always had a few goats and they ate poison ivy leaves. My mother, to this day, insists that drinking the goat’s milk was the reason that my brothers and I do not have any major reaction to poison ivy exposure,” DeLong said.

“I am not affected by handling it unless I get the sap, a milky white substance, on my skin which will result in what looks like a burn blister. The affected spot heals in a few days with no apparent effect to the adjacent skin area,” he added.

DeLong, 60, remembers drinking goat’s milk until about the age of 10. “Sometimes it was in place of cow’s milk, and other times just because we had goats,” he said. “It had a musky taste—sort of like the scent of a male goat.”

DeLong did not really like the taste of the goat’s milk and no longer drinks it, he said. “But with enough Ovaltine or chocolate syrup, it was drinkable,” he added.

So…I’m off to get a goat and lots of Ovaltine. Maybe it will eat the grass, too, and save some dollars in gas for the lawn mower!