Hi, don't know how much help I can be I milk cows and have justed stsrted making cheese, so these may very. Milking a cow is easy. You'll get your own tech down and she will work with you are main milk/nurse cow is a young holstien. Just kinda squeeze the teats in a downward motion.

Making cheese, wow not many peple responded to this for me. I started by bringing a gallon of milk up to 180 degrees slowly, in a stainless steel pot, add 2 to 4 T of apple cider vinegar to the milk. Dip out the curds onto cheese cloth, a peice of a pillow case, bandana what ever you have to strain with thats tightly woven. I use a stainless steal strainer under the cloth, then tie your cloth and hang cheese. I've also used buttermilk from the store to do this, I've just been tring different things out. Theres lots of places on the net you can buy rennet and etc but I haven't got there yet. Remember cheese is really white not yellow thats just food coloring. Also you can hit search on this site and when I asked about cheese should pop up there is sites on it. If I can help you please let me know.

Sandi - & I mean this in the kindest way possible. You have 3 milk goats that have freshened & desperately need to be milked, but you have no idea how to do it????

You didn't bother to read up on the care of milk goats before this? And your first thought is how to make cheese?

Sorry - this post is too sad for me.

breezyb no, I do not have 3 goats desperately needing to be milked. Their kids do a fine job. The goats are a Nubian cross and do not have to be milked at all. And yes, I have read for hours and hours on the internet to get as much "book" learning as I can, but I have always felt personal experience is the best teacher and thought perhaps some would like to share. Guess not on this forum.
Sandi

Sandi - my response wasn't meant to scare you off - but please re-read your original post.

You post that you want to learn how to make goat cheese, and at the same time you say that you don't even know - ahead of time - how to even milk the goats!!! And then you laugh about that. Exactly how did you expect that kind of post to come across?? Really? Do you have milk stands for your goats? Do you know how important the cleanliness issue is to prevent the milk from - not only contamination - but from tasting decidely "goaty"?? Do you realize that dairy animals have to be milked at relatively the same time TWICE a day - EVERY day?

There is no such thing as a "stupid" question, but when it is quite obvious that someone has taken on the responsibility of livestock without a clue, I'm sorry if I take that sort of post poorly. I get lambasted quite frequently for being snarky towards posts like these, but I see so many people take on livestock projects without even once picking up a book or contacting locals who can help them, that it just turns my stomach. These are living creatures you're dealing with.

The internet is not the Be All & End All of learning. And the internet isn't "First Hand Experience". "First Hand Experience" is finding someone near you who raises goats & can teach you in person what to do.

I'm glad that you are letting your kids nurse the moms so you don't have to learn how to milk them. Again - do you know what you are going to do with all the kids your goats will be producing in order to provide you with milk? Remember - you have to breed these goats every year to get milk, then bottle-feed these babies if you want the milk for yourself, then find a market for the kids. Have you thought of that?

Forget making cheese - first learn about maintaining dairy goats for milk - & from somewhere other than the internet. And please stop trying to make responsible livestock owners like myself feel guilty for putting the facts in front of you. I certainly don't. Sorry.

thanks for your "help" breezyb, but I think we'll be just fine without it. The cabrito market in South Texas is quite brisk. And I believe we'll even continue worming with diatomaceous earth.

When we wanted milk I separated the kids from the does in the evening, milked in the morning and turned them all out to pasture together. The kids were old enough to be eating solids and I took just a quart per doe so that the kids weren't going hungry. You don't have to bottle feed if you want to make cheese unless you're going to use all the milk the does make and not leave any for the kids. I didn't get that impression from your post.

I'm going to buy milk from a farming friend up the road and try my hand at goat cheese soon. What kind of cheese are you planning to make? I haven't decided yet. I'm sure it will be a soft, spreadable cheese this time. I've made cheese only once so I'm rather excited to try this again.

I thought maybe Panir/Queso Blanco. Mainly because it's supposed to be a good beginner's recipe & it uses vinegar instead of rennet. I can make the vinegar too, so that fits in better with what we're trying to do here. I've seen several recipes that use the vinegar, I'm sure one of those will be my 1st. Thanks for the tip too about separating the kids at night! Of all the things I've read & all the folks I've talked to no one has said to do that. I can see how that would make it much easier to milk 1st thing in the morning. We have an extra stall so it will be a very easy thing to separate them. Thanks again!

Hi frog ladyofTx. I separate my calves from the nurse cow every evening and in the morning only take what I need usually about 1/2 gal. oh yea and a qt for my barn cats. We have healthy cats and good mousers for the barn. Hope the cheese making is going well I can't seem to keep any in my frig very long, and its just the apple cider recipe. Also don't forget to use the stainless steal cooking items. Happy Cheese Making!!!!!

Just posted a couple of my favorite recipes for goat cheese on another post, so I won't do it again, but I thoroughly understand your frustration and learn-as-you-go technique. Worked for us for years. We found rennet available at drugstore pharmacies, especially the independents rather than chains. I'm just a bit dubious about only milking out what you want and leaving the rest. If a goat isn't milked out clean, she will easily get that udder infection/disease that I can't remember the name of right now. It will also compromise your milk. You probably should toss out the first pint or so of milk, rinse your bucket and begin again. We knew absolutely nothing, so forgive me if this is dumb. Put a pan of feed on a straw bale and your doe will (hopefully) jump up on it and dig in while you most quickly do your job while she's busy. The straw bale is so you aren't lying on the floor trying to get a grip. Even Nubians aren't very tall.

I too am interested in making goat cheese...frog ladyofTX, I too, am like you. I have ONE goat though, no idea how to make cheese, but fortunately I learned how to milk from childhood. A COW, that is, which I'm sure is going to be a little less tricky than milking a goat. breezyb needs to get a hobby and stop looking for forums to snipe at others, huh? ;^) Thanks to all others for being so informative! I believe I can give it a shot after reading all of your posts. Does anyone know how to process goat's milk before refrigerating? I know how to process cow's milk (i.e. strain out hairs, etc.), but don't know if you do similar for goat's milk. Thank you!

REEZYB you sound so snobbish! She isn't doing anything wrong, the baby goats are doing their job and making it possible for her to learn at her own pace without indangering the mother. you jump to conclusions and are obviously looking for problems, I think you are the problem. Saying the internet isn't the right place to learn is just an opinion, actually everything you said was an opinion, you are the only one who thinks it's fact. if you type in raw goat milk in google, there will be 30 thousand warnings about how to handle milk and such.
And about milking, it isn't exactly rocket science. I find it pretty pathetic that you are so proud of yourself for overcoming the incredible task of squeezing goat nipples. Get a life.

My first kid was born two days ago. Yesterday, a more experienced goatherd friend of mine came over and looked at her and the doe. He suggested milking the doe out, as the kid wasn't taking anywhere near her capacity. So I've got a pint of colostrum in the fridge, which I need to strain, pour into ice cube trays, and freeze. That way if I have an orphaned lamb or kid next year...

Breezy may not get it, but I understood exactly what was being said. This is my first kid, and my goat's first kid too. The goat was my now ex-wife's idea. Yes, I've grabbed a goat tit before and tried to get milk out of it, and I've been shown the proper technique, but that doesn't mean I really know how to do it.

What Rob showed me was that new goats will not accept a human milking them right off. The first few milkings are going to be troublesome. Don't get mad when she tries to use her back foot to push your hands away. Don't get mad if she dumps the milk. She's going to learn that it isn't so bad, and she'll get used to it. He said that one of his kicked with both back feet, and he caught her feet in the air and held them for a moment. She calmed right down. You can feed that first milk (probably contaminated with whatever's on her foot) to the dog, pigs, cats, whatever. Just don't plan on having it for yourself until she's trained to milk.

I have a milking stand, but since my goat is out with the sheep on rotating pasture, it wasn't handy. We milked her in the shelter, which is stock pannel arches covered with carpet. Eventually I realized I could just attach her collar to the stock pannel, and keep her back end between me and the wall. Yes, this means I'm bent down to milk. We'll see how that goes. I may bring out the milking stand but still clip her collar to the wall. For the first milking, it was good to have two people there.

It looks like the easiest way to do this is going to be to bring a few wide mouth quart mason jars out and milk directly into them, as they have tight lids and all. I'll also have to figure out an easy way to bring out some warm, ever so slightly soapy water and a cloth to clean her with before milking.

For cheese, I really want to learn to make mozzarella. It's something my ex used to make, and it only takes about a half hour to make. It uses citric acid, salt, and maybe a flavoring culture. All the stuff is cheap and available through places like New England Cheesemakers Supply, by mail order.

Dan

Dan Hi,
In reference to your "warm soapy water" for washing your doe. I use baby wipes. I use the ones that are anti bacterial and non scented. They are easy and non messy. Where I have my goats there is no power or running watter, I haul in water everyday and I use solar pannels for the fence and lanterns. Eventualy I'll get power and water, but that will take some time. So I use what I can and the baby wipes are awsome. Clean doe, clean milk, gotta love that.

Oh, also to the person that posted "processing goats milk". I dont know if your wanting to putt it throught the same process that they do for store milk(which I think totaly defeats the perpose of having farm fresh milk, but thats my opinkion), but we wash our does with baby wipes, mike her out(abviously) and then we double strain it. I use coffe filters to strain my milk instead of cheese cloth or what ever its called. I'm realy into easy. I use a fresh clean filter in a funnel each time I strain the milk. I(again I'm sure your aware of this) I imeadiatly put the milk into the fridge or into an ice chest so that it will chill. I have some of the best taisting milk in my area, its rich, and people come from over 50 miles away to buy my does milk. So I think I'm doing something right. I dont think I'm doing to bad for only owning goats 1 year.

Also, in the post about the doe feeding the baby and the kid not eating everything mom is making. I is a very good thing to milk her out. It was also posted that not milking the doe out can cuase problems with the does udders. I"ve experienced this first hand. I would strip the doe out twice a day no matter how many babies she has on her and how much they are drinking or not. Any milk left in her udder for extended time periods(this can very from goat to goat as to how long is extended) can cause mastitice which is very painful to the doe, potencialy deforming to her bag(blow outs compleet loss of one or both sides of her bag for milk production,)and can be life threatoning to her as well, not to meantion expensive to deal with.
Thats my 2 cents worth so hopfuly this will help some one.
Angela

Sherr - Could you tell me what you did with buttermilk when you made cheese from it? And how long did you hang the pillow case before the cheese was ready to go? I've never done this before, and I'd like to try.

I read all of these posts, and thought I would mention that the technique for milkign a goat and a cow is a bit different. If you milk a goat like you do a cow, by pulling down on the teat to make the milk come out, you can seriously damage her udder and teat tissue. Instead, squeeze the top of the teat with your thumb and forefinger, trapping the milk in the teat. Then, one by one, squeeze your fingers in a row going down the teat, progressively pushing that milk toward the opening. For instance, squeeze thumb and first finger in a ring around top of teat, then squeeze with your middle finger directly under first finger, then ring finger, till finally your pinky at the tip to get that last little bit out. NEVER pull on a goats teat. :)

This is so cool,Get yourself an Utterly EZ milker...
This thing is great..It makes milking goats easy..and
faster..It's not too expensive like those over priced
milking machines and it doesn't injure the teats of the doe..I have problems with my hands due to Fibromyalgia & OA.I've made goat cheese twice this year..I used an instant
starter for chevre cheese..Just heat the milk to 86 F,sprinkle in the starter,this contains everything in one..
the rennet and the culture..Mix slowly and take it off the
heat and wait for it to thicken..then slice,line strinner
with cheese cloth,and hang to drain..I have molds I put
the curds in to dry up a bit and to drain some more..The
recipe calls for 1 gallon of milk,but I only had 3 quarts
and it worked fine,the cheese just came out a little drier,
the way I wanted it anyhow..

Wow, I'm so happy I read this whole thing. I was going to post on how to get info to make Mozzarela cheese at home and have found a bunch here under goats! Thanks all. I want to say, don't let people on any of these forums in GardenWeb or any other forum get you upset when they get testy about your lack of knowledge. Could have been having a bad day. I take it in stride. If we all knew what we were doing, we wouldn't be out here asking questions! I myself started out with a 3 week old bull that mommy didn't want, owner couldn't keep up with. I had no idea. Guess what, I have a year old VERY HEALTHY bull, spoiled too. We even bought him a wife! She too came from a mom who wouldn't let her feed, but that owner did get her going ok on her own. So I've enjoyed watching them grow up, and know it won't be that long before he figures out how to get all the way up there to get her. I hope he doesn't get it for about another 6 months, I'm estimating in about 2 to 3 he will have it all figured out, but have learned if she gets it early, she should be ok, but may be stunted in growth. Whatever, they are happy, and I am happy. A baby should be happy, but that one will end up in the freezer! Well, that is the plan, but hubby didn't grow up on a farm. Had farmer neighbors, but never on the farm daily. Think about our forefathers, some of them had no clue, but did what they had to do to survive and it worked. Now, off to research how to make my own Mozzarella cheese!

I am new to making goat cheese but I am having a lot of fun making yogurt, ricotta cheese, and recently made mozarella. I have tried making yogurt using plain yogurt as the culture but I am not pleased with the results; it is not thick enough. I buy the yogurt culture in powder form at my local health food store. I would appreciate tips on making the yogurt using plain yogurt as the starter since it would be cheaper than buying it.

Just to let you know, there is nothing healthy about animal milks. It might be healthier than the pastuerized crap in plastic, but even straight from the utter it is not made for us! We are humans not goats,sheep, or cows! We stop breast milk our first year . Why do people think it's fine to drink animal milk? Stop the madness! Im just talking about from a health perspection.. It's probably abusing to the animal as well... I don't mean to burst your bubble but I can't stand to see animals being caged because people want to suck their tits! It gets me sick! Let me tie you down and milk you! Make some real good cheese, huh? Disgusting..