bitter after taste in goat milk

[Levonsa]

We have two nigerian does that kidded this past weekend. We are sperating the kids from them in the evening and milking in the mornings before work. The milk looks and smells fine, the texture seems fine too, but there is a terribly bitter after taste. Any idea what could be wrong?

Thanks,

[lamoncha lover]

hi
congrads on the babies! pictures are required
Um..could be you are drinking colostrum? It takes awhile to get the real milk. Also Do you strain the milk? See any stringies?

[Levonsa]

Yeah, it is filtered. I will keep milking them, but let the kids try it. This is the thrid time that we are milking and the first time we have had this, but we are starting sooner that we did before. I thought we may have been waiting to long to get started. There was nothing noticable in the milk. It is nearly dark when I get in from work. I will try to get some pictures this weekend.

[lamoncha lover]

when I bitter milk I was told it can take several weeks to get right.

[madness]

Yup, bitterness is probably just from some colostrum still in the milk. It took one of our does almost a month last year before hers started tasting sweet.

[wintrrwolf]

I was reading a dairy goat book and it had said for 2 weeks after giving birth the doe produces colostrum, which is pretty close to what I have seen stated here as well, some have said a week, I also think it depends on the doe and how often she is feeding the kids to how quickly the colostrum "runs out".
Bottle some of that up for the "just in case of emergency" bottle babies

[susanne]

bitter after taste can be a mineral imbalance.
colostrum does not has a bitter taste but is very sweet.

[mary,tx]

Eating ragweed will also cause the milk to taste bitter.

[saanengirl]

Colostrum is not sweet. It is saltier than regular milk, and has a lot of larger particles than regular milk. It could very well give a bitter taste due to those larger particles (globulins).

[susanne]

the colostrum from all of my goats is very sweet. almost like vanilla sauce. not salty at all.
since all my animals colostrum taste sweet, i assumed that this is normal.

[LaManchaPaul]

Suzie's milk was too sweet for me to drink for EIGHT DAYS!!! I was beginning to think something was wrong...

[copperpennykids]

Give your does baking soda to help neutralize the PH in their rumen. Simplest trick in the book to consistently good tasting milk.

Cobalt can also help you get excellent tasting milk (Dr. Parrish, small ruminant specialist, WSU).

More than likely hormones are at the root of this, but the above two will help straighten them out more quickly.

[Levonsa]

It has been just over a week and the after taste is all but gone. Here a few pictures of the two little bucklings that we now have for sale.





They wouldn't be still long enough to get pictures of them on the ground.