We have been successfully milking our goat now for 2 weeks!  Our schedule for milking has been pretty consistent…5:30AM and 5:30PM.  As I mentioned in the last post these times work best for us.  We still use two people to milk the goat.  Hazelnut kicks at first when I’m wiping her udder off then settles down once we start milking.  I found a recipe for a teat dip/wash/spray, however you want to put it, that I’m going to make for her.  It’s basically essential oils and a light soap.  I’m not sure if I will use a spray bottle then wipe her off with a cloth or just use disposable wipes.   I’ve been using the warm soapy water but I want to use something else that will moisturize her skin.

Last night was the first time we had gone off schedule, getting back late, while milking the goat so we missed the 5:30PM milking.  We milked her at 11PM and then again this morning around 9AM.  We plan to milk her again this evening at 5:30PM to get back on our schedule.  We got 1 1/2 cup last night and this morning we got 1 cup.  Not bad!  I know if you miss a milking there is a chance that the milk outcome will decrease.  Hopefully, by milking her late last night all will be okay.

Our goat stand is almost complete.  We just need to make a couple of adjustments and finishing touches to it.  Once it’s complete I will create a post on how Jacob made it and the dimensions for it.

 

Now the question that you are probably wondering!  How does the goat milk taste!?  Goaty.  I have heard that goat milk is supposed to taste like cow milk.  In our case it does not!  A while back I had bought goat milk from the store.  It tasted like our buck, BB8, went for a swim in it.  It tasted like how he smells.  I sent an e-mail to the company.  In their response they said the milk is not supposed to have that flavor, but the milk needs to be kept at a certain temperature.  Which I think was around 40 degrees.  I have read that with raw milk it’s best to keep it at 32 degrees!  Our milk doesn’t have that “buck” taste but it definitely doesn’t taste like cow milk.  Thinking that maybe our fridge is the culprit (which it has been on the fritz lately), I dumped out the milk we had.  After doing research online sometimes goat milk just tastes goaty because of the goat or it can be something she is eating or a lack of minerals.  We have a mineral block that we are going to give her to see if that helps.  I decided to go ahead and freeze the rest of the milk.  With this decision I’m thinking we will have milk for when Ava has her kids.  I posted a picture below of our frozen milk stash.  I did not mean to freeze the smaller jars, I accidentally forgot about them!  If you know me you will know that sometimes I forget since I get busy with something else!  If you don’t know me then you will learn.  Haha!  🙂  Anyways, I had done reading that after you filter the milk, put it in the freezer for a few minutes, then transfer to the fridge.  By it reaching its cooling point quicker, it’s supposed to help in making the milk not taste goaty.  It hasn’t worked.

This pretty much concludes what we have been doing, how things are going.  Today I will attempt to make cheese.  I’m thinking maybe the goat flavor will be okay in cheese?  Hopefully, it will work and we will be able to do something with all this milk besides freeze it for Ava’s kids.  The whole point of getting the goats was for the raw milk.  I will let you know!