Weird tasting milk

Son says it tastes worse. So, now what?

Now we know it's not from post-milking contamination or lipase. Generally with lipase milk it taste great right out of the animal, but goes bad within 12-24 hrs after chilling. Could still be feed, environment (absorbed taste issues), nutritional, or infection. I'd get a milk culture done on them. Evaluate handling and storage - milk does absorb odors/flavors from what the goats are eating a well as in storage.

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Dona Barski

"Breed the best, eat the rest"

Caprice Acres

French and American Alpines. CAE, Johnes neg herd. Abscess free. LA, DHIR.

I have had to take mine completely off pasture, for the time being, to get good milk after I tried everything else. I hope this changes as the season progresses.

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Karen

Is there somewhere where I can read about how to get a milk culture done? Is that the same thing as testing for mastitis?

I just had another idea this morning. We got different hay shortly after Snicket kidded...just sent a text to my hubby to see if he remembers exactly when. The old hay I was feeding was very green and fresh-looking. This stuff, while supposedly having a higher alfalfa content, is very stemmy, dry, and looks to be full of weeds...maybe there is ragweed in it. So...I'm thinking about getting some alfalfa pellets (I had been feeding them with the other hay, but dropped them when I got this hay) and taking away the hay for a bit to see if that helps at all. It just doesn't seem like it should be the pasture since they were on it last year, but I guess anything is possible.

I do believe it was the hay! The taste is almost back to normal. Of course, I have also switched back to last year's feed and added dolomite, but taking away the hay was the most recent change. Whatever it was, I hope to never go through that again.

Thanks so much for all of your help!

Interesting! What kind of hay was it?

It is supposed to be 80 percent alfalfa and 20 percent orchard grass, but it is very dry, brittle, and weedy. I figure there must be ragweed in it. There are clumps of dirt in it too...I'm not happy with it at all.

Is ragweed known for making the milk taste funny? I would think that would be a bonus because of how common ragweed allergies are.

Not that I think hay with clumps of dirt in it is acceptable... :-)

That's what I've heard.

It really was the hay. I started giving them a bit early last week, and within just a couple of days the milk was bad again. I stopped the hay and had good milk a couple of days later. Very odd, indeed!

Well, here's another update! I think, perhaps, it wasn't the hay after all. The milk tasted good for several days and then got bad again. So, I gave up and started giving them hay again and just used the milk for cooked things and fertilizer. I decided to taste the milk this morning and decided that it was pretty good. Had son try it and he gave the double thumbs up. So, now I don't know if it's because we haven't gone for a walk in the woods lately (lots of garlic mustard), or if it was just hormones, or what. Ugh...I hate not having answers!

I added a cobalt salt lick because my goats milk started getting a goaty flavor the next day. I gave her Vit B injections and that would clear up the goaty flavor for two days but there was still a slighty salty, sour flavor. I finally got my order of Sweetlix meat maker minerals (they have very high copper and cobalt levels) and her milk has never tasted better. Creamy, frothy and no goaty flavour for days. I can drink 4 day old milk and barely tell the difference between fresh milk.

Another source of cobalt:
http://www.jollygerman.com/livestock...tsulfate.shtml

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus