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Milk is Goaty and Goes Sour Quickly, What am I Doing Wrong??

1041 Views 7 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  Jubillee
I'll preface this by saying that I've only had my goats for about two months so I'm still very new to all of this. Previously, I have purchased raw goats milk from a few different local people, all who had Nubians, and it was never goaty and usually kept in the fridge for 2-3 weeks (on the rare occasion we forgot about it) without getting sour.

I have an Oberhasli currently in milk. We do not have a buck, and I do a mastitis test about every two weeks just for the heck of it (the kind on cardboard that you squirt milk on to). Our milk has a definite goaty flavor, and typically starts tasting sour in about a week, sometimes even just 5 days. I try to keep ahead of the milk so it doesn't sit that long, but sometimes life gets in the way and we just can't use it all within that timeframe.

I use seamless stainless steel buckets for milking, which are all rinsed with cold water before being washed with hot water and all-natural dish soap. I do a vinegar/hot water soak (regular old white vinegar as it is what we can get) 1-2x per week after the rinse, then wash as usual. The milk is put into an ice bath after filtering, sits in there for 30-45 min (sometimes an hour if we forget) before it goes in the fridge, which is maintaining about 39*.

Is there anything else I do to help fix this issue?? We don't mind the goaty flavor as it's not terribly pungent, but the souring issue is a big deal as it means about half a gallon (sometimes as much as a gallon) per week that's too sour to drink or use to make yogurt/ice cream/cheese.
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Have you done a fecal to see if you are dealing with worms at all?
I don’t have dairy goats so I could be way off base… but my mom had told me before that she couldn’t taste the difference in goat milk vs cow if the goats didn’t have worms. So that is the only reason I bring it up… hope you are able to get some better answers soon! 🍀
Some breeds of goats have more goaty tasting milk. Nigerian and Nubians seem to be the two breeds that don’t have bad flavor and taste normal
I've heard that grain/hay can have an effect on the favor of a goats milk, but I don't know if it's true.

My goats milk would get a weird taste if I had a buck around them, or if they were in heat.

Also, different goats will just have different tasting milk and some goats will have stronger tasting milk than others.
Is there any weeds popping up in her pen? Mineral deficiency can cause off tasting milk.
Try getting it strained in a jar and place in an ice bath to get cool faster. The sooner it's cooled the better it taste. The good news is, raw milk doesn't go bad for a long time. It goes sour..but not rotten. If you don't mind the taste, You still use for cooking ect or feed pigs, make soap, ..
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Hope this isn’t the case for you but I had a doe that just made strange tasting milk. She was free of mastitis, infection, illness, worms... she just had strange tasting milk. Not off, not “bad”, not goaty- just strange.

I went in to sell her to a friend who uses goats to keep his land clear. She’s happy there :)
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Need to look into mineral deficiency.
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There are only a few reasons goats have off milk. Worms, mastitis (even subclinical), feed or they ate something in the pasture, or minerals. Copper, cobalt, and selenium being off can cause milk to taste off.

Our milk has never gone sour or off-tasting before 2 weeks unless it was one of those things. We don't even do all the tricks to chill our milk quick, we milk the does, finish chores (maybe 15-20 minutes) then take the milk in and strain and put in the fridge, have done this for 6 years. Have even had bucks living with milking does, never had off tastes. Only when minerals are unbalanced, worms, or mastitis.

I have heard some breeds taste different, I thought it was Toggs, but IDK. We have Nubians and mini-Nubians.
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