Anybody not shave milk goat udders?

We don't shave or wash. Part of the premilking is a quick rub down by hand to knock loose things off.

And flying in the face of all my training, we do not use any form of post dip and haven't had a bit of trouble in 2 years.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

I only shave udders for the shows in summer. It is just too cold here to shave part of the year. I will clip a little bit around the vulva and tail come kidding time, but otherwise think the goats need their hair. They get cold. Buttercup was shivering this morning when I milked her because she was the first doe and my hands were still cold. Likewise with washing. When it's cold, I brush the udder off. Otherwise I use wipes.

I have been hand milking two to six goats for 31 years, for our homestead consumption. And I am sensitsive to off flavored milk, I don't like off flavored milk. I have never shaved, washed, dipped an udder or teat. I do trim hairs close to the teat if I am catching them in my grip of the teat. I knock off any loose stuff before I milk out the first squirts for the cat. I use a hooded milk pail and dump all collected milk into a 2 gallon lidded ss pail. When I am done with the goat chores I walk to the house and strain the milk into a gallon glass jar with the normal goat strainer and milk filters. My milk tastes sweet and fresh for at least 7 days and starts to develop an off flavor around day 9.

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I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I don't shave either but I am a nut on cleanliness in the barns/pens. I clean pens three times a day and stalls twice. But don't expect that in my house!

I don't shave until show time. I would highly recommend using some type of wash or dip however....really helps against mastitis. You will get more hair in the milk without shaving.

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Mill Valley Dairy Goats
Registered Alpines in western Michigan
www.freewebs.com/mill-valley

Thank you all for all the info! Most goat-know-how sites make shaving seem like a must...SO, thanks to the great responses, I am thankful I won't have to use my brother's razor on my goat. hehe

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Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near....Isaiah 55:6

This is sooo different than what you normally hear! Very interesting! And a bit more natural I would think… thanks all!

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LinderCroft

I clip under their belly & their udder. Hair is just a place for dirt to hang in which in turn falls in your milk. You will never get all the dirt out of the hair by brushing it. I then wash with a baby wipe, dry, squirt the frist couple of squirts onto the paper towel I used to dry with. Check for any lumps or anything unusual. Milk into stainless steel, strain, & chill quickly in an ice water bath. I also dip when done milking. I hate hair on or around their udders because it falls into the milk along with the dirt hanging on it & you pull it when milking if they are really hairy. Being very clean is the key to good tasting milk. I just don't see how dirty hair falling in your milk is clean. YUCK!

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I can't believe I deleted it!

Does anyone else use coffee filters to filter milk? I remember Mom using tea towels back in the day, and the few times I've milked my cow out, and not having those clean cotton tea towels, I just threw a filter in the basket and sat it on my half gallon jar and filtered it that way. It worked extremely well, milk in the filter keeps it from folding in on itself and the way the coffee baskets are made there are little grooves so that the fluid can escape the filter & run out of the basket. Of course, I couldn't understand why I got the jitters after drinking the cow's milk but I was really proud of myself for thinking of it!

I don't use coffee filters. The milk filters are made from a different product than coffee filters. The milk filters are thicker and are gauze like.

Oh, and for the sqeamish, 99.99% of the time, I never find a hair or any substance in my milk filters when I strain my milk. I often wonder why I go to the trouble to stain the milk, wash the strainer, buy the filters, etc, because I rarely find anything that was caught in the filter. Maybe it is because I position my hooded milk pail under the stomach area and not the udder

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I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Usually I will get 1 or 2 hairs per goat in the bucket. The only time I catch things in the filter is when someone puts their foot in the bucket. (We don't drink the milk...we feed it to calves.)

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Mill Valley Dairy Goats
Registered Alpines in western Michigan
www.freewebs.com/mill-valley