Tuesday, April 2, 2013

State of The Milk Stanchion

Since the kidding pen has finally been converted to the kid pen (meaning no more goat baby births), I've been locking the kids up at night in order to get lots o' milk for the morning milkings.
Help us, we're being held against our will every night!
And being served grain, fresh water and made to sleep on soft
straw instead of having to lay down on the damp ground outside.
Nettie gets milked first, then Annette, then New Goat (yeah yeah, still haven't named her).  Nettie is actually giving me a bit of a problem; she's holding her milk back on me, something she's never done before.  I'll get a half-gallon from her, then she won't let the rest of her milk down.  I gently massage it, firmly massage it, bump it, rub it with a warm towel, even talk dirty to her.  I'm even thinking of trying some Udder Shiatsu.  But no more milk.  Then as soon as I let her out of the milk stand and the twin bucklings come a'running, you can almost hear the milk slosh down into her teats.

Annette is milking just fine and New Goat is doing ok on the stand, although she'll occasionally give her back legs a kick and I've lost one container of milk because of it.  Not that the chickens and cats minded the little unscheduled snack.  So all in all, we've got milk flowing here again, and I'm pretty happy.  Except that I'm running out of room in the fridge.

One of my two normal weekly milk customers isn't in town yet, so I'm pretty much swimming in milk and continually having to move things in the fridge in order to find a place for the jars.  Time to make some cheese I suppose.

Or have milk with every meal.  And chocolate milk for snacks.

Or get a pig.

Hmmmmmm..........

12 comments:

  1. Enjoy all that milk, Carolyn. Goat milk *is* awesome!! :)

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  2. Those poor kids, they even look to be smiling - or are those sneers? How my family longs for goats milk, we have several weeks before it begins to flow again.

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  3. Just like the commercial, "Got Milk"

    Have you considered making soap or lotion with the extra goats milk?

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  4. You could freeze some of the milk for use during your "dry times." I never had any luck freezing goat's milk unless I pasteurized it first. Not ideal as we preferred it totally raw but it always curdled on me after being frozen and then defrosted if it wasn't pasteurized first. Piggies would grow big and fast and happy on your extra milk though.

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  5. Pudding anyone? Ice Cream? Yogurt? Got to be lots of uses for the milk.

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  6. Oh, to be so lucky as to have too much fresh raw milk. You could make cheese and freeze it like Leigh does at 5 Acres and a Dream. Enjoy it!

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  7. We are already enjoying goat's milk. I am making a batch of ricotta later tonight. Yum!

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  8. Lucky! I can't wait to start milking!
    I say you need a piglet or two ☺

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  9. Poor, starving, neglected kids...not. Hey! I hear that Tamworth pigs are a GREAT homestead pig! A heritage breed, not too large, good foragers, thrive on goats' milk.....

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  10. What a cute pic of the kids! Yes, they are so mistreated LOL

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  11. It can be a problem finding space in the fridge for all that lovely goat milk! Time to make cheese, it freezes much better than the milk! ;)

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  12. New Goat. Newgoat... Nogat? Nugget?? Sorry, brain rambling... Anyway, That is a problem I don't think I will have. Husband grew up milking cows, then if that wasn't enough, he then worked at a dairy, so he's of a mind that someone ELSE can do the milking... Meh. But those poor abused kids. How can you be so cruel? I mean, fresh hay and water and grain. What a monster! (giggle)

    Cat

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