When we were first seriously looking into adding goats to the farm, we did a lot of homework, a lot of reading, and we talked to various people more experienced than ourselves. Time and time again the same opinions kept cropping up. If looking for goats for milking some said “don’t get a first freshener your first time out“. The reasons given ranged from “she won’t let you milk her“, or “she’ll just dry up” to “first fresheners never produce much milk anyway“. While it’s true that milk yields in ruminants during a first lactation are typically lower than subsequent lactations, that doesn’t mean a first freshener can’t produce. The other tidbit of advice we were offered was “don’t waste your time trying to milk a dwarf goat, get a real goat if you want milk“. To which I now say some opinions are worth exactly what you pay for them.  Right, Minnie?

As you may have already figured out, I have a tendency not to listen to some things I’m told, and prefer to find things out for myself. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.  After all, there was the apricot tree.

Start With a Doe in Milk, or Kids?

That was first question we had as prospective goat owners. After some thought, and consideration, I decided that there are pros and cons to buying a doe in milk the first time out, just as there are with starting out with kids. For one, finding quality does for sale, that are in milk, is much more difficult than finding quality kids. Breeders don’t tend to want to sell their proven best milkers, and who could blame them?

On the one hand, with a doe in milk, you hit the ground running with milking chores, in addition to learning the ropes in regards to care and feeding of a lactating ruminant, which in and of itself requires some considerable thought, and care.

If you’ve never milked a goat before, having to milk your first goat within hours of her arriving at your barn, could be quite daunting. Milking isn’t rocket science, but there’s a little more to it than just walking up and squeezing a teat! However, if you buy a doe that’s been milked before, at least the doe should be used to being milked.

On the other hand if you get kids, like we did, it will be a while before you have goat’s milk. You may find yourself bottle feeding for weeks on end.

Then a few months later you’re looking for a date for your young doe. Then of course, after breeding, there’s kidding. Great when it goes smoothly, but of course, as with anything in life, there are never guarantees, so you have to be prepared for all eventualities…again, more forethought, and planning.

Finally, a year or so later, as feed prices continually creep up, you might finally get your first goat’s milk, by which time you may wonder if raising goats makes any economical sense at all.

If you’re an instant gratification, or impatient sort, or are lucky enough to procure an excellent milking doe, it certainly might be worthwhile starting out with a doe in milk. However, we decided to muster up some patience, start out with kids, and work up to a daily milking routine. Start from the ground up so to speak. There’s no right or wrong approach, it’s mostly a matter of personal preference, and availability.

So, in March, after much anticipation, Lotus had her first kids. Triplets. We were now, finally, the proud owners of a first freshener.

We’d graduated bottle raising, breeding, pregnancy, and parturition. The time we’d been waiting for was finally here…milking!

Milking the Dreaded First Freshener

Although I’d milked goats before (more by machine than by hand), I’d never milked a Nigerian Dwarf.

About six weeks before Lotus kidded we noticed her udder was starting to form.  Two weeks before kidding I wondered if perhaps those dwarf goat naysayers might be right. I have small hands, but…

Fortunately, I’d seen some lovely dwarf goats with beautiful udders, including her dam, so I knew there was a lot more to come. After all, at this stage she wasn’t even near kidding yet.

After she kidded, for a number of reasons, we pulled the kids from Lotus at the end of their colostrum period, and elected to bottle raise them this time around.

That meant it was time to start milking Lotus!

As I had some previous milking experience, my biggest concern when I first started hand milking Lotus wasn’t so much about technique, per se, as training, and behavior. As I hope to be milking Lotus for many more years to come, her first experiences on the milk stand could shape her attitude (and mine) for life.

Milking Started with Stanchion Training

The girls were already trained to the stanchion, and had been since they were tall enough to leap up there on their own.

Waiting until the first time I needed to milk to put a goat in a stanchion just seemed like asking for trouble. Any treats or grain have always been offered on the milk stand.

It’s no big deal to pick up a kid and put it on a stanchion, but I’m not lifting a full grown doe, in milk, any more than I have to, so I started out with the girls how I meant to go on.

So, getting Lotus on the stand, and securing the head-gate. No problem!

We also handle the goats a lot, from top, to bottom, so they’re not overly sensitive about being touched.

…and Then There’s the Milking Part…

I’ve recently had a number of emails from new goat owners, and been asked on Facebook, how I survived those first days milking my first – first freshener, and how on earth was I getting this much milk, twice a day, before the end of the first week.

Well, some of it is that Lotus is actually a very sweet goat, and always has been. Some of it is I’m very stubborn, tenacious, and determined. The rest is patience, and perhaps the most important part, good milking genetics.

When Lotus first kidded, she had no trouble whatsoever with me helping to get her kids nursing soon after birth. However, a few days later, when it came around to milking her the first time, I got an emphatic “OH NO YOU DON’T” from Lotus, and the goat equivalent of ‘stink eye’ for even thinking I should be allowed to go anywhere NEAR her udder.

At first I wondered who was this goat?! What happened to my sweet snuggly Lotus, and how on earth did I suddenly become the enemy?! Oh, yes, that’s right…motherhood!

Milking wasn’t optional though, as I had three hungry, squeaky mouths to feed. Over the course of the first few days I got settled into my milking routine, and despite Lotus’ epic circa 1980’s breakdance performance on the milk stand, I actually did get some milk in the bucket. Some. Not much. But enough to start the kids on. The rest was on me, or in the straw. Baby steps. Deep breath. I’m a Brit…stiff upper lip. Keep calm, and carry on.

My milking skills were rusty, but I kept plugging away at it, same routine, same times of day, and after the third day, I was still convinced I was failing ‘Milkmaid 101’, and was sure this was NEVER going to work.

Persistence Does Pay Off

Through all of this my goal was to teach Lotus that kicking up a fuss was NOT going to make me stop milking. If she kicked, and I stopped, which is what she wants me to do, I’d be inadvertently rewarding her for kicking. This meant for the first few days I milked her one-handed. I held her hind leg nearest to me up, grasping just above the hock, and then milked with the other hand.

This is an old milk-barn trick, that often works, on the theory that goats can’t stand on just their two front legs.  With one hind leg elevated, they can’t kick with the hind leg that’s down. I can say that’s not entirely true, and Lotus actually did stand on her two front legs quite well…albeit briefly, but holding up one hind leg did give me more control.

Some recommend hobbling goats. Personally, I absolutely abhor hobbles, for any animal. They’re frequently used incorrectly, and potentially very dangerous, and they teach the animal absolutely nothing. Besides, I don’t want to have to hobble a goat twice a day, every day, just to milk her. Although holding up one leg acts in a similar fashion to a hobble, the difference is I still have control, and I can use that to help teach her acceptable behavior on the milk stand long term. But that’s my preference. It was at this point, mid-milking, holding one hind leg up, that I was so happy we chose DWARF goats!

As I milked with one hand, and held her leg up with the other, I could feel if she started to relax. That allowed me to respond, and adjust my grip on the elevated leg. The more she relaxed, the more I relaxed, and soon she started to understand that she had some say in what was going on.

The key here of course, as with any training, is consistency. If she calmed down, she deserved to be rewarded for that. I expect the gradual improvement in my dwarf goat hand-milking technique, along with her starting to understand what to expect during milking, helped as well. Remember, this was new for her.  Goat’s don’t innately know how to be milked by a clumsy human.

For the first few days she’d oscillate between kicking up an epic fuss, and having periods on the stanchion where she’d calm down for a moment. If she was calm, I’d slowly lower her hind leg, but if she tensed or kicked again, I’d raise it back up. If she wanted to stand normally, all she had to do was stop kicking. Once that concept registered, she improved quickly, and the calm moments began to exceed the chaotic ones. It was all about giving her control.

From the beginning, if Lotus started to kick, lay down, defecate on the milk stand (oh yes, she did), step in the bucket (uh huh), kick the bucket (now you know where that term comes from) all the way over and dump the milk in my lap, I didn’t stop milking.

To prevent losing all the milk on the floor, I always kept a milk tote with me, and as I got some milk in the bucket (providing Lotus was calm) I’d stop for a moment, pour it off into the tote, and resume milking.

Once I had enough milk for the kids, if Lotus knocked the bucket over, I just kept milking, even if I milked her out onto the barn floor. I felt it was more important that we get the milking mechanics down, and focus on rewarding the right behavior.

Looking back now I can laugh, but at the time I remember thinking that milking a dwarf first freshener required a lot more agility, stamina, and tongue-biting than I’d expected, and maybe I should have listened to those naysayers. However, reviewing her milk records, we actually went from one handed milking, with Lotus on three legs (and occasionally two), to a calm, relaxed goat, chewing her cud, and two-handed milking, in just under a week.

Since then we’ve been working together as a team, and milking, I’m happy to say, is no longer a chore.

Of course, that said, I’ll be interested to see how well Minnie stands on two legs next year…if I know Minnie, she might even try to stand on one leg!

All that effort was worth it though, because then this happened…

To the first freshener and dwarf goat naysayers, this is proof that even with ONE dwarf goat in milk, you can still fill a fridge. This is less than one week’s worth of milk, from a single dwarf goat, that is still feeding three kids. In other words, this is the SURPLUS milk, that we haven’t already turned into goat’s milk ice cream, or cheese. At six weeks fresh, she’s now producing almost 5lbs of milk a day, which is very respectable for a goat her size.

I honestly couldn’t have asked for more from a first freshener dwarf goat. Lotus has exceeded even my expectations during this freshening so far.

I’m very happy with how quickly she settled down, and adjusted to her new role as a milking doe, and yes, for those that are interested, I am so completely regretting not doing DHIA this year.

We can track milk volume and weight, but I’m looking forward to knowing more about her milk composition, including protein, and butter fat. C’est la vie. Next year!

If You Want Milk…Choose Your Goats Wisely

That’s the take home message.  We wanted to bring dairy goats to the farm primarily for milk, so we were careful to select goats with excellent milking genetics. Not all goats, even of the same breed, are created equal. Quality milking goats come from good quality milking lines. You can’t take a rag-tag, poorly bred, scrawny goat, tied to a stake in a back yard, throw brown hay at it, and it expect it to perform in the milk pail. Quality dairy goats are an investment, as is their care and feeding.  The results are absolutely worth it…

I had expected I’d have to wait until the kids were weaned before venturing much further into cheese making, but I don’t think waiting any longer is really an option.  This weekend maybe I’ll finally try my hand at a bloomy rind cheese! I’ve always wanted to make a bloomy rind cheese.

Earlier this week I also ordered some supplies for making our first cold-process goat’s milk soap, too! After all, between fresh goat’s milk, honey, beeswax, and all the aromatics in the herb and flower gardens, making our own soap for the farm just makes sense. Not to mention that between cheese, and soap, maybe we can put off upgrading the refrigerator until next year!