Our love affair with Australian Miniature Goats happened thanks to our rubbish bin. We were in the process of 'greening' our life and were trying to lesson our load on he planet by gradually reducing the amount of rubbish and recycling we put out each week. Milk bottles were driving me crazy and so, logically, I turned to goats. All of my research said that I needed more than one goat, and at the time, we only had a 1/4 acre house block, so they needed to be little goats. Hence, we discovered Australian MinIature goats.
Our first mini, Harrison Park Miss Jorgie, kindly produced twin kids a few months after we took her home. We decided to keep the doeling as a companion and future milker, and so, from the time Tilly was a couple of weeks old, once daily milkings began. It's been a huge learning curve ever since, but we've now been milking our goats for the most part of three years.
We loooooove the milk and everyone who tries it agrees that it is the cleanest, freshest milk that you've ever tasted. It is absolutely perfect for a cuppa or baking or on your cereal (or just drinking!), but also makes yoghurt, cheese or soap when you have enough. Interestingly, goats cheese lovers have found our goats cheese a bit lacking in that 'goaty' flavour, but we love it's cleaner palate. Cream and butter aren't really a possibility as the fat globules in all goats milk are smaller than in cows milk so it is naturally homogenised. You could buy a (very expensive!) seperator, but for the amount of milk we're talking about, it's not worth it.
So how much do we get? We've so far milked Jorgie (53cm tall, longer body, now 5 year old) and Tilly (49cm petite little girl, not quite 3yo) and have found that Jorgie produces slightly more than Tilly, but that the quantities are highly variable based on how we're milking (as in how often and whether they also have kids on them during the day), feed intake and their mood/part of their cycle. But generally speaking we can expect 400-500 ml in a milking (though at peak times Jorgie has produced 750ml, and some milkings a goat will produce only 200-300ml). So if you're able to milk twice a day, you can expect about a litre from a well fed and healthy goat. We find this to be hugely favourable when compared to a milking breed full size goat who may give you more than twice this - who needs that much milk??
We have found that about 6 months after kidding, the milk levels drop a little, so have always stopped milking our goats at around this time. Our plan, now that Cleo's cottage has moved to bigger premises, is to have four does on a rotation of growing babies and milking so that we can have milk for most of the year. Selling kids as bottle babies allows us to keep milking, and helps to make this a sensible financial option - pregnancy and lactation mean that our goats go through a decent amount of feed! I'm sure it's still cheaper than buying milk, but it's certainly not free.
We use a 'custom built' (ie. Made from whatever we could find) stanchion for milking the goats and they (mostly) happily stand to be milked if fed well while it happens. We use a simple suction milking machine for most milking and care for udders with homemade herbal teat spray and balms.
I love milking my goats. It keeps us close to our animals and able to know them extremely well. Would I change away from minis now we have more space? No way! We love our minis for the size and ease of handling and the fact that there is so much less waste. Will I keep milking? Definitely! We've just kept one of Tilly's kids so that we now have three generations of milkers to see us into the future, and expect that when we start milking Miss Daisy, it will be getting close to retirement time for Jorgie.
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