Last year when we only had 2 nubian does, the milk didn't have a goat taste, but this year we have 9 goats, 3 mature does 3 wethers and 3 doelings, I'm milking right outside their pen,(not even close to where their sleeping and the milk taste like they smell, I've tried just cooking with it and it still comes thru, What could be the problem? My children are really pitching a fit and I was having to feed it to the dogs so I put the kids back on them full time until I can figure it out. Do I need to milk them further away from where they live? Is it because there are more this year? I don't have another pen to isolate any of them. Thanks Carol

-- Carol (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), September 07, 2000

Answers

Hi Carol,

It may not necessarily be where you are milking them, but perhaps what they are eating. Sometimes what they consume can alter the taste of milk. How many should not effect the taste of the milk. What about the wethers? Are they producing any "buck" smell at all? I'd try to figure out what you may be doing or feeding this yr compared to last. Hope this helps.

Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), September 07, 2000.

Carol, I've got the same problem. My milk customers have been griping off and on ever since the goats were fresh. Last year they said our milk was the best they'd ever tasted. I haven't solved the problem entirely yet, but I did change a few things which seemed to really make a difference. 1) Iwas milking into a plastic pitcher. The same one I used last year, but I guess bacteria got a toehold init or something, even though I bleached it regularly. Switched to a big (2 1/2 qt size) pyrex measuring cup and the quality improved. Also there is no more guesswork about exactly how much milk a goat gives, because you can see where the milk is in the cup, and where it's just foam. 2) It's been a hot summer, and I had a tendency to fill the water buckets, etc, for a minute or two after milking. Don't do this. Get the milk up to the house as fast as you can after milking. Strain it right away, (use a new, disposable milk filter each time)and cool the jar in a full sink of the coldest water you can get. If you have ice, use ice water.Stir it a time or two so it all cools evenly. 3) I took my husband out to the barn with me, and milked a little milk from each doe into a cup and had him taste it right there, warm. Warm milk has the most flavors and tastes if it is going to taste bad, it will then. I wanted to see if maybe one doe had bad milk, or mastitis, etc. He tried milk from all of them and said they were all fine, and that some of the samples were quite good and creamy. That meant that the bad taste wasn't the goat's fault, it came from something after that, so I went to work trying to pinpoint what I was doing wrong in the handling of the milk. Since then my children will drink it again, and it smells fine to me.

-- rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), September 07, 2000.

When we had a problem with goaty-tasting milk, I solved it by buying dairy cleaner from the feed store and cleaning my milking pail (stainless steel, hooded) and jars with that. It really is just a cleanliness problem -- the books all say that standard dishwashing procedures are not sufficient for dairy equipment, and they are right. Oh, and after we got rid of the last of our goats, and I still had some of the cleaner left, I found that it makes great toilet bowl cleaner, too -- really gets rid of the hard-water ring!

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), September 07, 2000.

I'll second the motion on the dairy cleaner, as a matter of fact, it makes a much better (and cheaper) dish soap than the commercial brands do. Just be sure that what you are using is safe to get on your skin. The milkstone remover(acid rinse) is the stuff that makes the great toilet bowl cleaner.

-- Connie (Connie@lunehaven.com), September 07, 2000.

I had the same problem . . . last year great milk, this year goaty taste. I worked out a new system to bring ice water and filter to the milking area. I filter and start chilling each goat's milk right after I milk her. I sterilize the jars every couple of uses, and sterilize the stainless steel milk pail and lid, too. Goaty taste is gone. BTW, I made the milk pail out of the three-quart bottom to a double boiler. A stainless steel lid I had fit it nicely, so I cut a half-moon type chunk out of the lid with a Dremel cutter, knocked off the burrs, and presto! a three-quart milk pail with half-moon lid! Works great!

-- Laura Jensen (lauraj@seedlaw.com), September 07, 2000.

Hi Carol, great answers already, and you really can't stress cleanliness enough. Trim up them udders, wash them before you milk, even if it is with just wetones, and use a post dip. Get the milk into the ice as soon as possible, I walk the milk to the house between does, while they finish their grain, and also milk into a stainless milk bucket that has a sodapop bottle with frozen water in it. If after fixing all of the above, your second step is a milk test for staph. Does can harbor staph mastitis with no clinical signs other than a small decrease in milk supply. Then look into your feed, especially if you are using a Brand Name feed. Realize that everytime they mix these feeds they are using a different oil, fat, grain, roughage, they are only guaranteeing the numbers on the tag not the ingredients. During the summer months they change oils in the mix to make them more pourable, which can include linseed oils which make your milk undrinkable. Also does with inadequate amounts of minerals in their diet, low in copper, and also does who need to be wormed, all can contribute to bad milk. 99% of the time in my new customers with pour milk taste, or milk that doesn't keep is realted to feed and the lack of minerals. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), September 07, 2000.

Vicki, what minerals are you suggesting. We changed feed just about the time our milk that never before tasted weird started tasting goaty. I would have never thought it was maybe the feed. We've dumped all our feed in containers so I'll have to wait for another week to check the bag and see what's the difference. It really puzzled us because I use dairy cleaner and sterilize everything everytime I use it. Even the cloths I use to wash udders with. I'm really glad to have an answer to the puzzle. Blessings Peggy

-- Peggy (wclpc@cookeville.com), September 07, 2000.

If you are cooling the milk quickly,I would try another brand of feed. Molasses in "sweet"type goat feeds can cause the milk to taste "goaty". One thing in your post puzzels me.You said the milk tasts just like they smell.Those does should have absolutely NO smell.Move the wethers to a new place.Your freezer. JT

-- JT Sessions (gone2seed@xoom.com), September 09, 2000.

Peggy would love to see your feed tag when you get one. The feeding of any animal by products can put your does in acidosis, which can cause her to have a metabolic change to her, and effect her milk and overall health. Inadequate vitimins and minerals of all kinds can effect her milk also. The feeding of horse feeds with to much molassas, we keep the molassas in our mix to 9% only. (We also got a change in our feed tag from me complaining to read "whey" instead of animal protein! Yeah!! ) If you are being as clean as usual, the does udders are trimmed, and you are still loseing keeping quality of your milk, definetly look into your feed first, then try some milk tests. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), September 10, 2000.

Thanks so much to everyone who answered my question, I feel like I got a lot of good response and excellent advice. I think I will get some dairy cleaner, and boil my jars. I already was taking the milk inside and filtering and cooling in between milking each doe. One thing that is different this year I realized is we got a new hot water heater and it doesn't get as hot so maybe my water just isn't hot enough, so I'll need to see if I can raise the temp. I don't use any plastic, I use a pint glass jar to milk in with a stainless steel bowl (covered sitting beside me) to pour the milk in when the jar gets full, this eliminates spilling the whole bowl if the doe decides to kick or get a dirty foot in the big bowl. I will have to ck on the feed, we buy from a local feed company who mixes their own and it does have molasses in it, it's 16% sweet feed marked "Baby Beef" this was recommened by the people we got the goats from originally. I'd like to know what others use for feed. When I sd the milk taste like they smell, my does don't really have a bad odor, more like a barnyard smell such as sweet hay with a little manure smell but not bad, but I do get a wift of buck smell every once in a while when in the pen with them all, which I don't understand since we castrated all the males at 3 days old. Anyway the milk isn't supposed to taste like a barnyard, it certainly didn't last year. Yes, I know it's time for the wethers to go in the deepfreeze, last year we sold them really quick, this year we have found anyone to buy them yet, my husband is not exactly of the homestead butchering type, he gets a little attached! I would love to go ahead and butcher them but I feel I need his help and he hasn't exactly been offering to help so if I don't sell them soon I will have to find a really sharp knife and some help. I'd also like to wait until it cools off a little more here in Texas before butchering. Any Caprine recipes will be welcomed! Once again thanks to EVERYONE for all the GREAT advice! I'll try all of it! Carol

-- Carol (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), September 10, 2000.

Hi Carol,

You're welcome for the help. As for your question about what everyone else feeds: We feed Blue Seal feed right now, a 16% sweet feed along with Sunshine Pellets, also Blue Seal. I also feed loose minerals on the side and have loose salt too. We were using a speciality mix and a different minerals mix, a 2:1 mineral. But we had to travel just 3 hrs one way to get it, shot the entire day and was not cost effective. I wonder about the feed you're feeding, it may be the culprit, but then it may not. I am just not familiar with that sort of feed as its not available in this neck of the woods.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), September 10, 2000.

Forty years ago our baby son developed diarrhea that NOTHING stopped. We tried every kind of formula, did all kinds of expensive tests, etc. One day a lab tech suggested using goat milk, since it had worked for their infant. We did, and he was fine. Seven years later, when his sister was born and showed same symptoms, it didn't take us long to figure out what to do. I heard that there is one protein different in goat and cow milk. Anyway, for the son, we'd drive several miles 2 or 3 times a week and buy raw goat milk from people who sold goat milk to local dairy when they called for it. We'd take the milk home, I'd pasteurize it and store in refrig. I never did taste it, but my husband would drink some occasionally, and I made gravy with it sometimes. For the daughter, we found a man who delivered the raw milk to our house. The milk never did smell, but every time one of those kids wet their diaper, it smelled like an old goat! By the way, they both outgrew the intolerance or whatever it was, and never had any more trouble.

-- ruth (bobtravous@email.com), September 11, 2000.