Morning Goat Milking

(click on the picture to be able to see it much bigger for detail)

1.// Greet the ladies in the morning. They are always eager to see me and know they will soon be getting their favorite food.

2.// Go in the feed room and mix up some yummy breakfast.

3.// We've got some dairy goat feed, alfalfa pellets, black oil sunflower seeds and some goat mineral. They actually don't really like the mineral so much but then they try to pick around it so it takes them longer to eat, which means I have longer to milk before they get antsy on the stand.

4.// Say hi to the hen and her baby chicks.

5.// Put Midnight and Meadow on leashes because they are kinda pushy to get through the gate when it isn't their turn. And this pregnant mama doesn't like trying to haul hungry goats outta the way of an open gate when they are hauling to get to their food.

6.// Red gets to go first. Her name is simply, Red. Because she has a red collar. We are so creative. Up on the milk stand she jumps to get to eat her breakfast. She gets a nice brush down to clear any shedding hair so it doesn't float down into my bucket.

7.// I've cleaned her udders and teats really well, squirted a couple squirts out to clear any bacteria, then am ready for it to go into my stainless steel bucket. Its got a nice little half moon opening for the milk to go in but no hay or hair!

8.// Red is all done so the pail gets a towel over it while I move her to the main day pen and get the next doe up on the stand.

9.// Red back with her babies for the day. (Once the kids are 2 weeks old, they get separated at nighttime so that the mama's udders can fill with milk for me to milk in the morning. Then they get all they want to drink all day-believe me, there is plenty to go around!).

10.// Spotty is up next. Again with the creative names. Spotty was/is our "wildest" doe, but boy is she a dandy to milk! She stands so nice. Gives me lots of milk and her teats are just so easy to milk!

11.// How I clean the udders and teats. With a norwex cloth. I have a pail of hot water to rinse it between does.

12.// Oh hey, look at that. My favorite part of milking! When the farmer comes out to the barn and helps in between his own chores! He will help move does from pen to pen and such! I can do it myself, but it just goes so much smoother/easier when he's around! He's my favorite.

13.// Now, the first two does have been milked. The milk goes into the house and strained into glass jars, then quickly cooled. (All glass jars and milking equipment and anything that comes into contact with the raw milk, I thoroughly clean with a dairy soap and sanitize with a dairy equipment sanitizer. Air dried upside down. Then ready to go!)

14.// Back out the barn to finish milking to last two does. This is midnight. She, along with Meadow, has been on our farm for just a couple of weeks now.

15.// And the last doe to be milked is Meadow. She has LOTS of milk. And usually finishes her breakfast before I can finish milking her.

16.// Her teats are HUGE around and that actually makes them a little harder to milk. But I'll forgive her since she gives me so much yummy milk!

We also have an orphan calf and then one of the baby goats that we bottle feed. So after I've got the milk for us cooling, I get the bottles made for them. 

Oh look, someone is awake. Greet my human kids for the morning =)

Then bottle feed the goat. The farmer bottle feeds the calf.

When the milk gets in the house its at 90 degrees. 

The glass quart jars get put in ice water in the freezer.

 In about an hour it is cooled down to 35 degrees. 

Getting it cooled down this quickly is one of the keys to getting it to taste to good and keeping it safe for human consumption!  A side-by-side comparison of whole cows milk from the grocery store and this goat milk, you can not tell a difference. It is amazing really. Goat milk gets such a bad rap but its all in the handling of the milk and equipment and also what you feed your milking does (and a few other variables that I don't need to go into here!).

So that is my morning routine from when the kids are 2 weeks old until they are completely weaned at around 8-10 weeks. When they are weaned this will be my routine in the morning and in the evening. For now, I just have one doe I milk in the evening so its much less work

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Also, we have one doe that just kidded this week so she isn't getting milked at all yet. But she will be added to the milking mix when her kids are 2 weeks old.

Okay, if you made it to the end of this post. Good job. =)