I have a doe that will be delivering within a few months. I want to milk her and need a list of things I need. I would love to get subscription to a goat milking magazine for recipes for cheese, soap, butter,lotion, ice cream etc.... Any and all help would greatly be appreciated. P.S. also If you can tell me where to get the items would be thankful
You want to make sure your milk area is clean and you chill your milk fast. To give you an idea, we use baby wipes to clean the udder, milk into a stainless steel cup, use a gold coffee filter, and pour into glass jars sitting in ice water. Others have different set ups and use different things. There are many options, and you can decide what works best for you. Like Karen said, a quick search of this site will bring up a bunch of ideas. I also like the book "Home Cheese Making" by Ricki Carroll. Has a good mix of easy and harder recipes. I would recommend going to a bookstore and looking at a bunch of different books. None really struck me, or 'called' to me until I found this one. But again, your preference may be different! Good luck! Milking and making things from it is so fun and rewarding!
As far as equipment are concerned, you'll need a milk stanchion, stainless bucket (size vary depending on size of your goat), filters for straining raw milk, a method of cleaning the udder/teats before milking, strip cup (or some people just squeeze milk onto ground) and a disinfectant after you milk (I use fightbac). you can get all the supplies through http://hoeggerfarmyard.com/xcart/home.php I use diluted iodine to clean teats before milking. I also make my own wet wipes to clean the udder/underside just to get lost dirt/hair off my doe before milking.
I use milk filters from hoeggerfarmyard.com or caprinesupply.com. They work alot better than coffee filters in my experience.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=gold+coffee+filter Lots of different places on-line or in person. Fred Meyer, REI, Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, Amazon, etc...
You can also go to supermarket coffee section for the reusable coffee filters PippasCubby has mentioned. I use one of those and it works great.