The Backyard Homestead

by Carleen Madigan

  Goat Milk

  Milk from a doe that is properly cared for tastes exactly like milk from a cow. Although most people in the United States drink cow milk, around the world more people drink goat milk than cow milk.

  Goat milk, like all milk, contains solids suspended or dissolved in water. Goat milk is made up of approximately 87 percent water and 13 percent solids:

  • Lactose (milk sugar), which gives us energy

  • Milk fat, which warms our body and gives milk its creamy, smooth texture

  • Proteins, which help with growth and muscle development

  • Minerals, for our general good health

  Milking Equipment

  Goats are milked in a milk room or milk parlor, which may be built into a corner of your dairy barn or in a separate building. Some people milk their goats in their garage or laundry room. Wherever your milk room is, it should be easy to clean and big enough to hold a milk stand and a few necessary supplies.

  A milk stand, homemade or purchased from a dairy goat supplier, gives you a comfortable place to sit while you milk. At the head of the milk stand is a stanchion that locks the doe’s head in place so she can’t wander away while you are still milking her. Most people feed a doe her ration of concentrate to keep her from fidgeting during milking, but it’s better to train your does to be milked without eating. A doe that’s used to eating while she’s being milked tends to get restless if she finishes eating before you finish milking.

  Keep your equipment scrupulously clean to ensure that the milk is healthful and good tasting. Every time you use any of your dairy equipment, rinse it in lukewarm (not hot) water to melt milk fat clinging to the sides. Then scrub everything with hot water mixed with liquid dish detergent and a splash of household chlorine bleach. Use a stiff plastic brush — not a dishcloth (which won’t get the equipment clean) or a scouring pad (which causes scratches where bacteria can hide). Rinse the equipment in clean water, then in dairy acid cleaner (which you can obtain from a farm or dairy supply store), then once more in clear water.

  You will need the following equipment and supplies for milking.

  Equipment. These items are a one-time purchase:

  • Spray bottle (for teat dip)

  • Strip cup

  • Stainless-steel milk pail

  • Dairy strainer or funnel

  • Milk storage jars

  • Pasteurizer

  • California Mastitis Test kit

  • Milk scale

  • Sturdy milking stand with feed cup

  Supplies. These items must be replaced as you use them:

  • Baby wipes

  • Teat dip

  • Bag Balm or Corn Huskers lotion

  • Milk filters

  • Chlorine bleach

  • Dairy acid cleaner

  • A handful of grain to entice the doe onto the stand

  A milk stand may be used for hoof trimming as well as for milking.

  Milking a Goat

  When a doe gives birth, her body begins producing milk for her kids, a process called freshening. If the doe is a milking breed, she may give more milk than her kids need and continue to produce milk long after the kids are weaned. The amount of milk a doe gives increases for the first 4 weeks after she freshens, then levels off for about 15 weeks, after which production gradually decreases and eventually stops until the doe freshens again to start a new lactation cycle.

  A doe’s milk is produced and stored in her udder. At the bottom of the udder are two teats, each with a hole at the end through which the milk squirts out. The two most important things to remember when you milk a goat are to keep her calm and not pull down on her teats, both of which can be tricky when you’re first learning. Keep the doe calm by singing or talking to her and by remaining calm yourself. Not pulling her teats takes practice. The doe will kick the milk pail if you pull a teat, pinch her with a fingernail, or pull a hair on her teat. To avoid pulling a doe’s hair during milking, and to keep hair and dirt out of the milk pail, use clippers to trim the long hairs from her udder, flanks, thighs, tail, and the back part of her belly.

  To get milk to squirt from the hole, you must squeeze the teat rather than pull it. The first time you try, chances are milk will not squirt out but will instead go back up into the udder. To force the milk downward, apply pressure at the top of the teat with your thumb and index finger. With the rest of your fingers, gently squeeze the teat to move the milk downward. If you are milking a miniature goat, her tiny teats may have room for only your thumb and two fingers.

  After you get out one squirt, release the pressure on the teat to let more milk flow in. Since you will be sitting on the milk stand and facing the doe’s tail, work the right teat with your left hand and the left teat with your right hand. Get a steady rhythm going by alternating right, left, right, left. Aim the stream into your pail beneath the doe’s udder. At first the milk may squirt up the wall, down your sleeve, or into your face, while the doe dances a little jig on the milk stand. Keep at it and before long you will both handle the job like pros.

  How to Milk

  Apply pressure with your thumb and index finger to keep the milk from going back up into the udder.

  Use your remaining fingers to move the milk downward into the milk pail.

  When the flow of milk stops, gently bump and massage the udder. If more milk comes down, keep milking. When the udder is empty, the teats will become soft and flat instead of firm and swollen.

  If you milk more than one doe, always milk them in the same order every day, starting with the dominant doe and working your way down to the meekest. Your goats will get used to the routine and will know whose turn is next.

  As you take each doe to the milk stand, brush her to remove loose hair and wipe her udder with a fresh baby wipe to remove clinging dirt. While you clean the doe’s udder, watch for signs of trouble — wounds, lumps, or unusual warmth or coolness. Squirt the first few drops of milk from each side into a cup or small bowl, called a “strip cup” because it is used to examine the first squirt or stripping. Check the stripping to see whether it is lumpy or thick, two signs of mastitis.

  When you finish milking each doe, spray the teats with teat dip so bacteria can’t enter the openings. Use a brand recommended for goats — some dips used for cows are too harsh for a doe’s tender udder. In dry or cold weather, prevent chapping by rubbing the teats and udder with Bag Balm (available from a dairy supplier) or Corn Huskers lotion (available from a drugstore).

  Milk Output

  Exactly how much milk a doe produces in each cycle depends on her age, breed, ancestry, feeding, health and general well-being, and how often you milk. The more often you milk, the more milk the doe will produce. Most goat keepers milk twice a day, as close to 12 hours apart as possible. If milking twice a day gives you more milk than you can use, milk only once a day. Do it every day at about the same time. If you don’t milk regularly, your doe’s udder will bag up, or swell with milk. Bagging up signals the doe’s body that her milk is no longer needed, and the doe dries off.

  Milking a large goat

  Milking a miniature goat

  The more often you milk, the more milk the doe will produce. Most goat keepers milk twice a day, as close to 12 hours apart as possible.

  Milk sold at the grocery store is measured by volume: 1 pint, 1 quart, or ½ gallon. Milk producers measure milk by weight: pounds and tenths of a pound. One pint of water weighs approximately 1 pound, giving rise to the old saying, “A pint’s a pound the world around.” Milk also weighs approximately 1 pound per pint, although its exact weight depends on the amount of milk fat it contains, which varies by goat and by season.

  During the peak of production, a good doe in her prime should give at least 8 pounds of milk (about 1 gallon) per day. She will then gradually taper off to about 2 pounds (1 quart) per day by the end of her lactation cycle. During the entire lactation, the average doe will give you about 1,800 pounds (900 quarts). A min
iature doe averages one-third as much milk as a large doe.

  Weighing each doe’s output helps you manage your goats properly. A sudden decrease in production may mean a doe is unhealthy, is not getting enough to eat, or is in heat.

  Weigh milk by hanging the full pail from a dairy scale. A dairy scale has two indicator arms. Set the arm on the right to zero. With the empty pail hanging from the scale, set the left arm to zero. When you hang a pail of milk on the scale, the left arm automatically deducts the weight of the pail. Use the right arm to weigh other things, such as newborn kids.

  If you don’t have a scale, you can keep track of each doe’s output by volume, although this method is not as accurate as weighing because fresh milk has foam on top and it’s hard to tell where the foam stops and the milk starts.

  Keep a record of each doe’s milk output, noting not only the amount of milk obtained from each milking but also anything that might affect output, such as changes you’ve made in the doe’s ration, rainy weather that has kept your herd from going out to graze, or the time of day you milked (whether earlier or later than usual). At the end of each month, add up each doe’s milk output. At the end of her lactation cycle, add up each doe’s total output.

  A standard cycle lasts 10 months, or 305 days. To accurately compare the annual output from each doe, or to compare the output of one doe against another, adjust production to a 305-day cycle: Divide the total output by the actual number of days in the cycle, then multiply by 305.

  Milk Handling

  Milk, especially raw milk, is highly perishable and extremely delicate. Following are some simple steps that will prevent spoilage.

  • Cool milk immediately after milking.

  • Don’t add fresh warm milk to cold milk.

  • Never expose milk to sunlight or fluorescent light.

  Cooling milk immediately after milking means that it should not be left standing while you finish chores. Ideally, milk should be cooled down to 38°F (3°C) within an hour after leaving the goat. That’s quite a rapid drop when you consider that it was over 100°F (38°C) when it left the udder. Home refrigerators aren’t cold enough to cool large quantities of milk. Small containers may be cooled in the refrigerator, but anything more than a quart will not cool rapidly enough for good results unless it’s immersed in ice water. (Remember, the bottom of the refrigerator is colder than the top is.)

  Don’t add fresh warm milk to cold milk. If you’re accumulating milk for cheesemaking, develop a system for rotating it, perhaps from left to right or one shelf to another, so you know which is freshest.

  If you store milk in glass jars, be sure never to leave them in the sun or fluorescent light, as this will change the flavor. But, then, don’t leave a container of milk sitting out after a meal in any event. Keep it cold.

  Raw Milk vs. Pasteurized

  If you want to start a dandy (and sometimes heated) discussion in goat circles, just casually bring up the topic of raw milk and stand back.

  For obvious reasons, most people never worry about such trifles. They just buy their jug or bag of milk and don’t ever have to think about where it came from or how it was treated. For those of us interested in simple living, however, or even just in producing our own dairy products, it’s not nearly so simple.

  Here’s the problem. Milk is the “ideal” food, for animals, for humans — and for bacteria. Milk is extremely delicate. It can attract, incubate, and pass on all sorts of nasty things such as salmonella, toxoplasmosis, Q fever, listeriosis, campylobacteriosis, and others that most of us non-medical people never even hear about. In short, nature’s most healthful food can make you very sick.

  The Industrial Age answer has been pasteurization — heat-treating the milk to kill or retard most of those threatening organisms. Government regulations now demand that such treatment be performed “for the public good.”

  This is no doubt a wise policy, for the masses. When you pick up a jug of milk at the store, how would you know if the dairy animals were healthy, if the milker had clean hands or a runny nose, and if proper sanitation measures were taken, without such governmental intervention?

  But many goat-milk drinkers raise their glasses with a different perspective. They know everything about their animals, from age and health status to medical history and what they ate since the last milking. The home milker knows exactly how the milk was handled — how clean the milking area and utensils were, how quickly the milk was cooled and to what temperature, and how long it has been stored. (Usually, it hasn’t been stored long. Most milk from the home dairy is probably consumed before commercial milk even leaves the farm, if it’s picked up only every two or three days.)

  The home milker knows exactly how the milk was handled — how clean the milking area and utensils were, how quickly the milk was cooled and to what temperature, and how long it has been stored.

  Under these conditions, many people who milk goats feel it isn’t necessary to go to the bother of pasteurizing their milk. Also, many people raise goats because they want raw milk. (It’s illegal to sell raw milk, goat or cow, in most states, although goat milk is often sold as “pet food” for orphaned or sickly young animals.) Some think it tastes better. And some say it’s more nutritious.

  Pasteurization does have an effect on nutritive value. But raw-milk opponents claim it’s very minor and insignificant when compared to the potential dangers of untreated milk. To them those dangers are horrific: They would just as soon drink poison.

  One of the potential problems raw-milk opponents often point to is campylobacteriosis, a gastrointestinal disease caused by campylobacter — a bacterium universally present in birds, including domestic poultry. Among the symptoms, which range from mild to severe, are abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and fever. Apparently, farm families who regularly drink raw milk build up an immunity. Most of the reported cases have involved farm visitors, those unused to raw milk. Raw-milk advocates point out that the incidence is very small — might as well worry about being struck by a meteorite, they say.

  More serious diseases associated with raw-milk consumption are tuberculosis and undulant, or Malta, fever (called brucellosis in animals). While cattle are susceptible to tuberculosis, goats are highly resistant: They have not been implicated in tuberculosis outbreaks. And whereas undulant fever is a goat problem in some countries, including Mexico, it hasn’t been in the United States.

  So, who’s right, those who oppose raw milk or those who advocate it? Probably both, in certain situations and under certain circumstances. For example, people with impaired immune systems, such as infants and the elderly, are more at risk for some of the minor diseases that can be passed from goats to humans. In general, most people who feel strongly about this issue, one way or the other, base their decisions more on emotions than on facts. Your personal decision will very likely depend on your psychological makeup: how you regard science and medicine in general, for example, or your attitude toward natural or organic foods, or whether or not you fasten your seat belt.

  Pasteurization 101

  If you decide to pasteurize your milk, all it involves is heating it to 165°F (74°C) for 15 seconds. Home-size pasteurizers are available. (Do not use a microwave, as some people suggest. Dairy scientists have proved that it doesn’t work.) And if you prefer raw milk but want an extra measure of safety, have your goats tested for tuberculosis, brucellosis, and campylobacter. And be sure to practice scrupulous sanitation.

  Milk Sensitivities

  Milk gets its sweet taste from the complex sugar lactose. For your body to digest lactose, it needs the enzyme lactase to break down the lactose into two simple sugars: glucose and galactose. About 75 percent of all adults are lactase deficient. They cannot digest lactose, and when they ingest it, the result is bloating, cramps, gas, nausea, and diarrhea. The problem may be resolved by taking a lactase concentrate, available at most drugstores. Fermentation reduces lactose content by as much as 50 percent, so if you have a problem drinking milk because of l
actose intolerance, you may not have a problem eating yogurt.

  Not all problems associated with milk are caused by lactase deficiency. About 5 percent of the population is allergic to milk protein. In children, symptoms of milk protein allergy are eczema and digestive problems, including diarrhea, vomiting, and colic. In adults, milk protein allergy causes a feeling of being bloated and gassy. Since the protein in goat milk is not the same as the protein in cow milk, someone who is sensitive to cow milk protein may have no trouble drinking goat milk. Besides having a different protein makeup, goat milk has proportionally more small fat globules, making it easier to digest than cow milk and therefore leaving less undigested residue in the stomach to cause gas and cramps.

  Goat Milk vs. Cow Milk

  Goat milk does not taste any different from cow milk. It doesn’t look appreciably different. It’s somewhat whiter, because it doesn’t contain the carotene that gives a yellow tinge to the fat in cow milk. (Goats convert all carotenes into vitamin A.) It is not richer. It certainly does not smell; if it does, something’s wrong.

  Most goat raisers enjoy serving products of their home dairy to skeptical friends and neighbors. The reaction is invariably, “Why, it tastes just like cow’s milk!”

  People who are accustomed to regular standardized milk (milk that has butterfat removed to just barely meet minimum requirements) or who drink skim milk are prone to comment on the “richness” of goat milk. They’d say the same thing about real cow milk if they had the opportunity to taste it before the cream was separated from it. As with cow milk, the percentage of butterfat — the source of the richness — varies with breed, stage of lactation, feed, and age. But generally, there is virtually no difference in taste or richness between whole, fresh cow milk and goat milk.