Dairy goat owners, I have a question.

[mabeane]

I certainly agree with you.
My daughter makes and sells cheese. The first cheese I had from her I couldn't eat...too goaty. Over time her methods changed and now what she makes is yummy. She has also improved her herd.

 

[_sonshine_]

Thanks!
I wont give up on my goats (I have 4) I will give my girls a fair chance!

 

[ALANB]

I'm Alanb ; Hope to get several answers to this. I love cold Goats milk !! and recently got the urge (in our recesion) to make butter with little or NO succes !! It takes a week or more to separate . Welcome Ideas on my E-mail to bebop@i10net.com . Thankyou ... , ALANB.

 

[ksalvagno]

If you have the money to spend, you could buy a cream separator. Unfortunately, they cost around $500 unless you can find a used one somewhere. I haven't tried separating the cream so I don't have any other ideas.

 

[dkluzier]

I love my nubian cross goats milk the best, we have a saanen and the only difference that I can taste is the difference in milk-fat, the saanen's being more 1%.

I think that if you have a predetermined idea that it is going to taste "goaty" or "bucky" then it will. Period.

I also tried making butter and the end result was fabulous. The only problem was that I only got a tablesppon of delicious butter from a pint of goat milk. Not worth the effort.

 

[Aegipan]

Well I have a different perspective on the goat milk flavor thing. And I am pretty well flummoxed so maybe someone can help me figure this thing out.

I had a Togg goat who gave birth to two bucklings around April. Didn't milk her for the first few weeks...just let the bucklings nurse. Started milking her sometime in May. The milk was delicious and sweet to our surprise since we had 1) had a bad experience with goat milk and 2) heard bad things about Toggs. So great, right? Not so much...

After milking for several weeks, the milk began to get more and more goaty. Finally no one could stand it. We thought, the bucklings are getting older, they must be making it taste bad. Got rid of the bucklings. Meanwhile, we bought a second dairy goat, a Nubian in milk. Began drinking her milk. Sweet and delicious. Hurray...At first. After several weeks, it now tastes like the other goat's milk (it never recovered to its previous taste and we had been giving it to the dogs - they adore it).

So now I have two goats who started out producing delicious milk that changed over a period of several weeks to undrinkably funky. Obviously it is something in my environment making the milk taste bad. I can't believe it is the way I am handling the milk, cleaning the does or utensils, or anything in the environment I am milking in, since that has been consistent whether the milk tastes good or bad. My procedures have been the same throughout.

We have no bucks on our property. I am pretty sure the neighbor's bucks are far enough away that that is not a factor (plus wrong time of year). And it doesn't taste like something they ate. It tastes (and smells) like old socks smell. To me anyway.

After the research I have done, I have to think the only thing that is left is that the goats are ill, but I do not know what it could be or what to treat them for. I'm assuming the second doe picked up whatever it is and began manifesting the symptoms after a few weeks of being on our farm.

Anyone have suggestions?

 

[Ariel301]

Have you changed your feed at all? Are the goats on pasture? If they are on pasture, there may be something they are eating out there that is causing it, and either it was not growing earlier, or they had not found it yet.

 

[cutechick2010]

Sounds to me like your goats are missing something, like a mineral that they need. What are you feeding them? I know with mine, I was getting an off flavor in the milk (they are Nubians, BTW) and I couldn't figure out why. Then one morning I had my Rose on the stand, she turned her head and looked at me, and I saw that she had "spectacles". That is a classic sign of copper deficiency. So I bolused with copper, and the milk tasted fine again in a day or two. That doesn't mean necessarily mean that copper is what your goats need, you will have to do some research on mineral deficiency to find out what tends to be low in your area, etc.

 

[Aegipan]

Wow, that might be it, cutechick. I have been really bad about giving them their minerals lately. It could well be a mineral deficiency.

Thanks for suggesting that. I will get right on it. I am sure they must need their minerals anyway. (Shame on me.)

Ariel, I kind of doubt it is the pasture for the reasons of the timing as I explained (kind of complicated). I wondered about the feed but I have been giving them alfalfa hay and commercial dairy goat feed on the stand 2x a day and I am pretty sure the hay has been the same all along. Maybe it would be worth trying a different hay for a while. I'll try just about anything at this point. I am super frustrated.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

I notice that when I don't feed dry hay and just let my doe graze pasture, her milk is more goaty tasting.