Do you have to have a cream separator to make butter from goats milk?

[Mini-M Ranch]

We are getting our dairy herd started this fall, hopefully to start milking in the spring. I was hoping to be able to make ice cream, butter, cheese, fudge, you get the idea.

But SERIOUSLY cream separators are ridiculously priced! Do I have to have the cream separated out before I can make butter? I could buy two goats for the price of the cheapest cream separator I can find! YIKES!

 

[kstaven]

You can let it sit and you will get a little of the cream. But in all reality you do want a separator.

Goat milk is naturally homogenized so the bulk of the cream will not separate out like cows milk does.

 

[Roll farms]

I found one (hand crank) from Russia on Ebay for less than 100$ including shipping. It got here last week and right now w/ babies I don't have enough extra to try it, but I will update how satisfied I am with it once I have.

(I'd found a used one on a local classified site for 150$...googled Ebay to see if it was worth that much and decided I'd rather pay 100$ for a new one than risk buying someone's dirty / possibly diseased (or broken) used one.)

 

[Ariel301]

I don't have a cream separator, but if you really want to get serious about making butter from goat milk, you will need one. It takes about four days of sitting undisturbed for me to get a decent amount of cream off my goat milk, and even then, it's not much, so it takes a long time to save up enough for butter.