milking procedure for goats

[Guest guest]

Here is what works for me.

I like the wide mouth half gallon mason jars with the 'freezer'

plastic lid, rather than the two piece canning lid. I scrub out with

hot soapy, bleach water, rinse and drain dry. When I notice any

haziness on glass, I use an acid rinse (it's a product for dairy use.)

Go with dairy quality stainless steel, the cheap stuff won't hold up

and it's not engineered correctly (cheap will have rolled edges where

dirt can hide!) Get a stainless strainer that will fit the wide

mouth mason jars. I rinse all my stainless in warm water, then wash

in hot soapy bleach water, rinse and drain dry. Once or twice a week

I soak in the acid rinse to remove 'milk stone' build up. Don't use

a sponge or rag in washing, use a brush instead.

Before hand I will have carefully clipped the udders to remove

all long hair. It's called a 'dairy clip' and you just trim hair

around the udder, lower leg, flank, and belly.

I milk in nitrile or latex gloves. This gives me a better grip,

it protects my hands from chapping, and it protects my goats from my

carrying germs goat to goat in the cracks of my skin. Between goats

I can easily rinse my hands in some 10% bleach water (warm in winter,

cool in summer.)

My favorite teat dip is either Nolvasan or tamed iodine. Both

have glycerine in them to prevent skin chapping, and both are long

time proven effective. Whatever you use, make sure it's labeled as

effetive and that it has skin conditioners in it to prevent

chapping. Risk of mastitis rises drastically once skin is broken by

chapping.

I use a dip cup, dip the teat, wait a minute, then wipe off with

a single use towel paying attention to teat ends. Then I squirt a

few squirts into a strip cup or a CMT paddle. If everything is OK, I

start milking. When finished, I dip again. If temp is above

freezing I don't wipe off. It it's below freezing, I wait a minute,

then blot dry with another towel.

NOTE- you can use paper towel or cloth. If you use cloth, you need

to wash in hot water, use bleach or dry in dryer. Any one of these

will be enough to render your cloths clean and relatively sterile. I

have a five gallon bucket lined with a clean garbage bag, with a lid

that has a hole in it just big enough to pull the cloth out. I

launder my towels and when dry, put them in the bucket. When the

bucket is hung UPSIDE down it's easy to pull a towel out, but dirt

won't get inside!

I strain each bucket (it's a gallon bucket, so that's a goat's

worth) right into a wide mouth mason jar, cap, and drop it into an

ice water bath. In about five minutes, I will gently shake to invert

and mix the now cold outer layer with still warm inner layer.

When I get back to the house, I remove the jars from ice water

bath, dry off the outside, and with a permanent marker and masking

tape label each as to date and milking. What I milked this morning

would be 12/31 AM and what I milked tonight would be 12/31 PM. They

are then put into the refrigerator or go to make cheese or whatever.

I use the same routine with the cows, too. Except they often

have dirt, manure caked on udder that must be removed, too. I pay a

bit more attention to scrubbing teat ends on cows as they tend to be

dirtier than a goat. Goats hate wet, mud, and dirt so won't lay

about in it like a cow will.

There are 'dairy' chemicals available. I find that bleach and

regular dish detergent works well. The acid rinse though, you do

need to use or you get milkstone build up. It used to be widely

available, but with so many dairies going out of business is now hard

to find. I get mine from the cow dairy I work at as relief milker.

Some say that vinegar works? But, we have really hard water and

vinegar won't put a dent in our milkstone. Some of the bathroom

cleaners have acid in them, but they also have a really strong scent,

that might linger? You might be able to get acid at pool supply?

Try not to get too obsessed about it though. My grandmother got by

just fine with nothing but a galvinized bucket, lye soap, and

boiling water. Her milk, butter, buttermilk, and cottage cheese was

fine.

Donna

Safehaven Nubians

Dandridge, TN