So, this past week & a half I've been having trouble with the milk...Shelf life has been sporadic.
I'm milking 2 girls, 1 mini alpine & 1 standard alpine...averaging 1 1/2 gallons per day.
I've clabbered & fed a gallon to the chickens & the dogs & cats have shared about a gallon.
Nothing ingested by the goats to cause this. Both girls milk is normal, taste good fresh.
Sterile equipment, rapid chilling & basically have double checked EVERYTHING that could be milk related.
Started keeping Tootsie & Sabrinas milk separate instead of combining them and taste was still goaty!
Sometimes milk was goaty after just a day....sometimes it took a few days.
Milk stored in my square pitcher was fine.....anything in quart or 1/2 gallon jars not so good. Was getting very, very frustrated at this mystery & was going to post for advice..
Until SHE was caught red handed!
She being my 6 year old.
We had someone over for a visit once who fussed over the "slimy milk"....cream being the slime.
So my daughter was opening the jars, DRINKING STRAIGHT FROM THE JAR because the "slimey" part at the top is the very best according to her, then she'd replace the lid & SHAKE THE MILK WITH ALL HER MIGHT!!
I watched her trying to figure out what on earth she was doing......Called to her mid jar shake, startled her, she dropped the jar, it broke...huge mess everywhere so once we got that clean I got my answer.
She said she liked the slimeys so she tried to suck them off the top, then if she shook the milk it wouldn't get slimeys....Asked her how often she shook my jars "Oh, whenever I get something from the fridge, that way no one has to see slimeys if they dont like them"
Explained why the square glass pitcher remained safe, she couldn't shake that one..
I could see her reasoning to an extent on the "milk slimeys"....our odd guest made quite a fuss over the cream on the milk (called it slime, hence our nickname for it) & it made an impression on her.....but to drink from the jars?!?! She knows better than that! "But mommy, I saw DADDY drink out of the orange juice jug, drank it all & put it back in the fridge empty!"
Anywho, we had a talk about the milk, I explained you had to be careful with it, never drink from the jars & never shake it up....then to get the point across I let her try some of the goaty milk
lol
Cats got another treat this evening, we had a glass of wonderful tasting 4 day old milk from the pitcher & tomorrow I can rest easy knowing my milk is safe again
Goaty Milk Mystery Solved..
Oh, Crystal, that was RICH! Thank you for sharing that story!
, RandomGal. 
