It would have to be a non-food application, if we are trying to isolate the antibiotics. The only non-food application of milk that I am aware of is casein plastics.
I think 'wasting' it is good. Once you find something useful for it, it perverts the incentives. A sick cow should be considered a complete waste with no benefit.
If mitchty is like all the former dairy farmers I know, it's because dairy farming is a lot of hard work, and it never ends. There are no weekends, and no holidays. I like raising beef cattle because many days you don't even have to look at them. (Not today though! Ice to break on the pond, for starters...)
What kind of beef cattle do you raise? I'm trying to track down heritage breeds but having some trouble. If you have any leads please contact me through the email address in my profile.
Red Angus, with some commercial cattle as ET recips. I don't know anything about "heritage" breeds. I'd recommend Red Angus for all but the very hottest parts of the USA (and other nations at similar latitudes): they tolerate heat better than Black Angus but after all most of the genetics did come from Scotland! They are very docile, and the breed organization emphasizes valuable commercial traits like calving ease, weight gain, and ribeye area. Red Angus bulls are a great cross if your herd needs better carcasses, maternal characteristics, or thriftiness. See http://redangus.org/ for more info.
Haha yeah we try to use different ponds for those two purposes. Actually when possible I prefer to keep cattle out of ponds entirely for environmental reasons, but faucets freeze too. I have a feeling that by the time this winter starts, I'll be hoping for some global warming.
If you're in a professional ag setting (farm, etc), that small amount of milk (and even smaller amount of antibiotics in said milk) should pale in comparison to the amount of material in your compost setup. Should be fine, although I'm willing to test this theory out.
Disclaimer: I'm not a farmer, but I do manage the IT/automation of my/a family farm.
This seems like exactly the kind of "slowly and steadily select for antibiotic resistance in bacteria" behavior that they're trying to avoid with these changes.