Show me your Goats

[Charles R. Stevens]

My undrmerstanding that both the milk fat and protein in goats milk is different (and friendlier to human digestion) than that if cows milk. It makes thinner yogurt and when cooking with it one may want to cut it half with milk as it will make your milk gravy and mack and cheese to sweet. 

I have considerd kinder for the same volume of milk, meaty carcasses and lower feed bills but as I prefer to hand milk two and three finger teats are not for me.  

 

[CrazyGoatLady]

I don't know the science on goat milk. Something about the enzymes are easier on the digestive system. There's getting to be a move to goats for milk and meat. I see it too.  There are goats popping up everywhere here. Prices have gone up to. Good for me when I sell. We are going to move into some meat production. Joint venture with my father- in- law. Small scale, but we'll see where it goes. And possibly milk. I don't have a lot of room to sustain a large herd but he does. 

[Frosty]

5 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

but as I prefer to hand milk two and three finger teats are not for me.  

Oh goodness Charles, people who milk goats are classier than those who milk cows. They milk with their pinkies sticking up, just like we drink our tea and nibble crumpets. So give that goat teat a squeeze and join us upper crusties. 

I asked Deb about goat vs. cow milk, she started right in explaining the whats and whys but couldn't remember the details that make it so. Soooooo I did a web search.

Goat's milk is more digestible because the fat molecules are smaller than cow's, requiring less time and energy to digest.

It contains less lactose (milk sugar) which is not only harder to digest but causes problems for a large % of people. Lactose intolerance is the norm for most of the world.

It's less allergenic because the levels of the protein "Alpha s1 Casein" are about 89% less in goats milk. 

I don't think this last has anything to do with digestion but it's pretty cool. Goat milk is naturally homogenized, it doesn't separate like cow milk.  

Frosty's GoogleFu is strong in the summer sun!

 

On 6/25/2019 at 7:15 PM, SLAG said:

his hard drive

I'm not touching that one Slag!

Not even metaphorically, I'm not THAT mixed up.

Frosty The Lucky.

[SLAG]

Jer,

SLAG,  replies:

HAH  !!

Good night gang.

SLAG.

 

[Frosty]

Sleep well Bro, see you on the morro

Frosty The Lucky.

[CrazyGoatLady]

Thank you for the explanation of goat vs. cow milk. I read things, but my retention isn't so good. I'm more of a hands on learner if that makes sense.

I should be asleep. It's near 2 o clock here. I have a tad of  insomnia sometimes. I was looking at the ABANA website, then flipped back over here.

[Frosty]

I'm glad it came up, now I know the whys too. I understand learning hands on. Before the accident I had a near eidetic memory for the written word but I learn faster, more thoroughly and retain it better if I DO it too. 

If you need a goat vs. cow milk refresher the terms I used were, "goat milk vs. cow milk digestion" What I wrote was a near word for word copy of a blog entry. 

It's a little late for me too but I've been waiting for it to cool off enough to sleep. Don't laugh but it just dropped below 70 f. and I don't sweat and sleep well at the same time.

Sleep well Darlin, we'll carry on the Caprine capers tomorrow.

Frosty The Lucky.

[CrazyGoatLady]

Thanks. My husband can tell you the how and why on things anywhere from black soldier fly compost to finances. I used to be like that. But nowadays it's more like I can show you, but I may be stumped on how to tell you. A guy called the other night and was saying he thought his goats may have worms and what to do. I asked him symptoms and circumstances like what kind of grass they are on etc. I was thinking I sounded like an idiot because I couldn't explain myself adequately. I didn't just want to tell him what to. I want him to KNOW what to do so he'll know in the future. And to be right. Worms can take a goat down fast and they are heavy this year because we've had so much rain. They've been worming but it's still going so I told him how we do it. But I think it's the grass. It's thick and wet underneath. He lives in Oklahoma and they've been saturated too. Eating wet grass can make them runny.  Told him to go ahead and worm and get them on some good coastal hay. I haven't heard back, so I hope all is well. 

We can't sleep if it's hot either. We are in Texas summertime so it's getting where it'll still be in the 80s at night. So far, it's been a mild start. Maybe it'll stay that way

[Frosty]

We had to watch early grass. Nothing takes goats down faster than bloat. The cool thing was they tended to prefer eating other sprouts than the timothy pasture grass. They LOVE dandelion sprouts and their other favorite is Devil's club, sprouts are best but they'll actually strip the bark off branches to eat the insides. Wild roses grow everywhere EXCEPT the goat pastures. Willow shoots? Eaten to bare ground though they don't pull the roots to eat like Devil's Club. Put a couple sheep in the pasture to keep the grass cropped and it looks like a manicured lawn. 

The geese were entertaining but we had to keep them separate from the goats, geese are bullies. The ornery birds used to peck Buran all the time, constantly so we separated them in the isolation pen. They had their wading pool, shelter, etc. and they couldn't pick on the goats so all was good.

Then what do we notice? There's Buran laying hard against the fence with the geese working him over good. After a while he rolled over so they could do the other side. Believe me it's not torture when the dog rolls up so they can do his belly and . . junk. 

After a while the geese lost interest in Buran and shortly there are the girls laying against the fence with the geese working them over hard and fast. 

We felt like idiots, it was spring, the livestock was shedding and the geese were nesting. Those had to be the nicest, softest, warmest nests ever. The ganders lived with the boys. Where else? e opened the gate to the isolation pen back up and let the geese groom the livestock. 

You should've seen Buran with two clutches of goslings. You can NOT beat a Pyre for foster mothering. 

Good times, great memories.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Steve Sells]

either grooming, or Buran is a masochist

[anvil]

Those were the days, my friend, to quote an old song. 

We raised goats on our small corner of the rocky mountains. We had nubians and we had a milk, cheese,yogurt business. The yogurt was to die for. It always had a layer of cream on the top.

We raised paints and quarter horses and had a stud I kept from a good mare. He was the last in a line of three colts from a good quarter horse mare i bought whilst in the navy.

Our dogs were malamuts. A companied by persian kitties. Of course chickens, geese, and rabbits.

Lest I forget along with this melange we raised two beautiful daughters as well. We lived on the edge of Colorado's largest national forest. Needless to say our daughters dissapeared most of the day,,, but we never worried about them. With good horses, great dogs, and occasionally a persian kitty or so,, they were always in good company.

My business was shoeing horses. Lots of fall trades for a side of beef and pork. Fall was a busy time canning and butchering the male babies. Cant beat chavon.

We never messed with a billy. For many reasons, as mentioned above, we preferred to breed to an outside billy.

With all the critters, you might say we had liters of litters! As cute as baby goaties are, its hard to beat malamute puppies!

When I swopped hats from farrier to blacksmith, or should i say from nocona cowboy work boots to redwing insulated steel toes,,, I tried to get a loan to go to Turley Forge. Alas, no luck! Well our grey silver female malamute and our black and white "Diab" male stepped up and had a huge litter of 14 pups!. Timing was perfect. We ended up with 14 very happy new malamute owners/friends and an excellent six weeks in Sante Fe at Franks school. Thats called creative financing!

Thanks for this thread,,,

It was an idyllic time, never to be forgotten. 

[Frosty]

When the pyres were blowing their winter coats anybody or thing that would pull it out was their friend. Once we noticed the geese I started paying more attention to what was going on in the pasture during shedding time. There wasn't any fluffy winter fur in the fences or bushes because every bird around was collecting it. It wasn't unusual to see Buran walking around with robins and finches riding his back. They never rode for long but it was like lampreys on sharks but more pettable.

Sounds like a little slice of heaven Anvil. Malemutes are a good breed if you get them socialized young, their prey drive can get away from them if you're not careful. Good timing on the pups. 

We stuck with Pygmies, it was Deb's passion I wanted to raise a couple Boers, we had a 1/2 Boer doe and bred her to a Boer buck but every time she kidded they sold for more than buying a freezer full of meat cost. I never did get to BBQ a kid. 

That's one of the best things about raising goats, if one of the kids is too much trouble you can sell or eat it without getting in trouble. 

Good times but life moves on. Still have the good memories, they'll do.

Frosty The Lucky.

[CrazyGoatLady]

Such wonderful stories. I never thought posting a picture of goat kids would turn out to be such a great thread of its own. 

[Charles R. Stevens]

If you put goats milk in a cold refrigerator for a week or two it will separate. 

Mad to worms. Barber pole worms are tough hombre ad quickly become resistant to wormers. Experiments in both the quad and Australia show copper wire oxide particles to be effective. Toxicity in sheep has not been a problem at theroputic dosses. 

I don’t remember the exact dosing (and you look like a drug dealer weighing out 1/2 ad one gram dosses anyway) but the small empty capsuls from the pharmacy make a baby dose and the larger ones an adult.  Buy the cattle bolluses. I use a peice of plastic pipe and a dowl as a bollus gun. 

Milk health, last time I checked despite many falls positives terbuculosis ad bercilis have not been found in goat dairy herds, so raw milk is atleast as store bought (it’s up to you to deside how safe that is...) so raw is just fine, combined with the studies about asma and allergies it’s probably better.    

[Frosty]

Locally grown hay, our pasture included doesn't contain enough copper so we were always supplementing even for the sheep though less so. What really messes people up here is how copper and selenium interact. Low copper looks like selenium toxicity and vise versa.

The soil here is naturally low in selenium too but not enough to cause deficiencies.  The problem arises when you bring the copper to proper levels it causes effects that LOOK like selenium deficiencies and if you treat for it selenium reaches toxic levels fast.

A LITTLE too  much selenium is serious, a little too much copper is no big deal. Not good but not serious.

I THINK that's how it worked, I don't recall exactly. We never had the problem but Deb was on top of it before her goats got here. 

I almost forgot. Who leaves goat's milk in the fridge for a couple weeks? That's almost like saying no thanks to free beer! 

Frosty The Lucky.

[CrazyGoatLady]

I bought some goat milk from the store. Nearly five dollars a quart. I went to drink some, and it was the foulest stuff to ever cross my lips. It tasted exactly like a buck smells. I could have went out and licked one and it wouldn't have tasted any different. We don't raise dairy goats so I don't know. But I've been told ýou have to keep the does separated from the bucks or they'll pick up the scent in their milk. Something else I need to study up on. Anyone have any insight into that?

If you've never heard of it, there's a magazine called Goat Rancher. We read about a study in New Zealand about deworming. Worms are virtually non existent in sheep and goats there. Most wormers in the U.S. don't work anymore because they have been so overused. The USDA doesn't allow us to use the same kind of meds they have available in N.Z.  so the recommendation is to use two or three wormers in conjunction with each other in big doses. I can tell you what we do if anyone is interested. It works and I have nearly 0% worm problems in an area that is riddled with them. 

[Frosty]

I hope the folk who know how much I LOVE a straight line will forgive me for letting you slide on you knowing what a Buck tastes like. 

Oh okay you did say tastes like a buck smells. Guess I couldn't resist after all. 

Sounds to me like a goat dairy that doesn't keep the bucks and does separate. That is NOT a sign of good husbandry. You don't want your livestock going into labor at random, you lose too many that way. 

IIRC Deb used to rotate wormers to avoid building a resistance AND the copper and other supplements got fed directly in their mineral feeders. This let us monitor who was eating how much so we could test if something seemed off.

No mineral salt blocks, the goats didn't need as much salt as they did minerals so folks who relied on mineral salt blocks tended to have deficiencies. A couple breeders around here insisted loudly and obnoxiously that the mineral lick they used was THE BEST. Then complain about having to pay the vet to treat sick goats who usually just needed minerals. Knuckleheads didn't realize vets talk about any and all health issues so everybody knew the recurring problems were solved with a mineral supplement shot. 

I guess if an ego is worth a few hundred dollars a month in unnecessary vet calls. They were right. 

It always seemed like abuse to me.

Frosty The Lucky.

[CrazyGoatLady]

Actually, I do know how they taste... when you run around from chore to chore without washing your hands and you wipe sweat off your face... and my boys were very demanding for pets. I know that's grosser than most people even know, but its true. Needless to say, I made it a point to wash my hands. I can't remember what the name of that dairy is. Somewhere out of the Dallas/ Ft. Worth area I think. And my olfactory senses lit up when I tasted it. Rotating wormers is a good idea also. There's quite a bit of debate on how to do things like what your talking about the with the mineral blocks. We raise pedigreed Texas A&M New Zealand's and TAMUK( Texas A&M University at Kingsville) composites and rabbit breeders are just about as hard core on what is the gospel for what to do when it comes to raising them. We know people who are convinced they have some deadly disease, and then they are just fine a day later. Book knowledge, but no feel for it I think. I've only had a handful of rabbits die in 4 1/2 years of raising them, unless they were butchered. Two from snake bite, and two from heat stroke. And babies whom their mother put them out. Things like that.  I must be doing something right to have such low mortality rates. And only one goat who died from worm infestation. Ive learned a lot since then. I guess my point is, I don't tell anyone an absolute way is the best. If they ask, I explain what we have done and then done differently after learning better from hands on experience. Sorry for the painfully long post 

[SLAG]

Frosty  San,

I am not sure how goats respond to trace minerals.  (never knew any, to ask).

But in humans, it is suggested that people, who take supplemental zinc,  (zinc gluconate),  get a little extra copper. The required amount of copper is not usually very much* and multivitamins with minerals tablets is usually enough.

Is it the same with goats?

Just sayyin',

SLAG.

* trace amounts.

 

[Charles R. Stevens]

I have no ideal what foul thing they do to goats milk before it gets to the store,but next morning after a fresh quart has chilled (don’t put it up in half gallons it dosnt  chill fast enugh) dosnt have any disagrable tast. 

The barber pole worm is a southern problem Jerry, and as wire oxide particles is a supplement and not a wormer you should be fine with the FDA and Dep of Ag goat lady.

 

[CrazyGoatLady]

Thank you Charles. I'm thankful I haven't had much trouble with worms for a couple of years now. That milk was terrible. I'll have to find someone around here who has dairy goats and try some. There are people a few miles from us who have a large herd of Nubians. But if they sell them or milk, they don't advertise very well. We were going to see about buying a couple but couldn't figure out how to get a hold of them.  Most everything around here seem to be meat goats 

[CrazyGoatLady]

And if it seems odd that I've never had goat milk( besides the yucky stuff) is because of lactose intolerance. That's why I wanted to raise milk goats in the first place. I still don't drink much milk though it's better now. Used to have an allergy to eggs and oddly enough, we raise laying hens for eggs. But I can tolerate small doses of those much better than store bought. I'm hopeful about goat milk. Thomas Powers mentioned goat milk cheesecake. Sounds tasty

[Charles R. Stevens]

The reason I have goats milk hang around long enugh to separate (do shake it up) is I save it up to make cheese and yogurt and as I realy am the only one using it I have a surplus.

Halfbreed nannies are popular, as many meat goat breeders keep a couple of milk nannies (ever wonder why we call them nannies?) to make bottle feeding bummers cheaper. The 1/2 breeds produce 3/4 offspring that benifit from hybrid vigor as well as momma making more milk.  

[anvil]

We learned quick how to get rid of the "goaty" taste. After straining and covered with cheese cloth we let it sit on the counter for an hour or so. Along with no billys, it worked great and we fooled many who claimed they could tell the difference between goats and cows milk.

As for  cream, i learned,alas, a few years ago from a other goat lady that  cream would rise, even from nubians, by pouring it into a shallow pan like a cooky sheet and setting it in the fridge over night.

Also our yogurt was never thin. It was always firm with a creme layer on the top. I cant add more here as my wife did this, not me.

The cheese was great. It had a tendency to attract a blue mold wich then became a roquefort tasting cheese to die for!

[Frosty]

I just looked Barber Pole Worm up and YIKES nasty! I'm sure happy we didn't have to deal with those.  We raised African Pygmies so didn't milk, one finger teats if you have small fingers. 

I've never tasted rank milk, goat, cow or . . . I have a habit from kidhood of always smelling it before tasting. Never tasted rank milk is wrong, sometimes a bottle would go sour and as a kid I had to be quick to take a slug or I'd get yelled at for drinking out of the bottle.

The taste of lumpy sour milk lays on the palate for quite a while. So I habitually give milk a smell before the first sip. 

I've never had bad goat's milk though. I haven't had any around in quite a while though, not since we stopped keeping them and slipped away from that circle of friends. 

Frosty The Lucky.