Milking Season

June milking Delores’ ‘Toggenburg side’ this morning. (18th October, 2021.)

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Every season is milking season. That’s why we purchased a British Alpine billy goat last year – a breed that can be relied on to produce dairy goats that you can milk through the winter.

As luck would have it, Mandy, a doe we bought many years ago when establishing our present herd, and without giving much thought to breed characteristics, was half British Alpine and milked through winters. And this winter, Minnie, one of her kids, provided enough for our milk drinks and yoghurt.

This year we used our own buck for the first time, but for the previous three years, the buck we bred from was one we’d given to June’s friend, Tilaya, who also has goats.

The system had worked well. The on heat goat would be put in a trailer crate and taken to him; they’d mate as we waited and then we’d bring the doe home. Fortunate up to now – no problems with inbreeding – but continue to use the same buck and undesirable characteristics would become evident.

The kids born so far this spring – one male and two female – and sired by our British Alpine billy goat, all display characteristics of the breed, most notably their black and white coats. The boy, when he is weaned in January, will go to Tilaya, and he’ll then be the billy goat she uses. (See https://grahamrcooper.com/2021/10/11/youve-got-to-be-kidding-pt-2/) We’ll get some money for him and that will help defray costs.

The boy and girl twins are drinking all of Ivory’s milk, but Delores, with just the one to feed, has enough left over to supply us with over half a litre every morning. One of her teats is small, typical of the Anglo-Nubian breed, and the other side of her udder has more of a Toggenburg structure with a teat of a good size for milking by hand. The kid favours the small teat, so all three are happy with the arrangement – Delores needs the other side milked out and June’s happy to oblige!

As for the reference to Toggenburgs, well, that was the year Tilaya didn’t have a buck, so we took Delores’ mum, Mandy, and another doe, to a Toggenburg billy in Geraldine. That makes Delores 50% Toggenburg, and 25% each of Anglo-Nubian and British Alpine.

We’ve been buying in milk recently because there was a gap of a few weeks between the in-kid Minnie fizzling out at the end of winter, and June starting to milk Delores. Bought milk is always a disappointment. Minimally processed goat milk sets the bar impossibly high:

• goat milk
• unpasteurized
• organic
• non-homogenised full cream milk
• permeate free
• glass bottles

Our one and only local supermarket, a 4 Square, stocks 1.5 litre bottles of pasteurized organic cow milk – it’s homogenised, not permeate free, and very expensive. We rationalise and buy the much cheaper option to tide us over for a few weeks:

• cow milk (‘Meadow Fresh’ – a company owned by the Asia-Pacific conglomerate Goodman Fielder)
• pasteurized
• non-organic (industrial dairy system)
• non-homogenised full cream milk
• permeate free
• plastic bottles (2 litres)

You have to smile at the marketing hype: “Meadow Fresh Farmhouse [milk] so the cream will naturally rise to the top just like it did in the good old days. LOVE THE GOOD.” [sic] What could be more “pure NZ dairy” than that?

We don’t use cream often, and although we do have an old milk separator, we’re not into the hassle of sterilising its stainless steel funnels and pipes. That’s the one thing we miss about not getting milk from a house cow anymore: the milk, in a big container, used to settle overnight in the fridge, and the cream could then be skimmed off the top.

The smaller fat globules in goat milk remain in suspension – it ain’t gonna “naturally rise to the top just like it did in the good old days”. (Big sigh.) So when June made goat milk ice cream the other day, the extra cream she needed is as in the picture: 500 ml of ‘Pams’ brand pasteurised cream from cows.

The recipe June uses is on the side of an old rennet packet. (We now use vegetable rennet.) June doubles the ingredients and makes the equivalent of a 2 litre block of ice cream. Here’s the recipe and a photo sequence demonstrating how June goes about making ice cream:

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With the other first kidder and the second kidder due next week, it won’t be long before goat yoghurt and cheese are also on the menu again. That just leaves Minnie, who’s been there, done that, four times already, to have her kids late December.

And June’s planning to milk her again through next winter. It really is every season this milking season!