# Pink milk



## rhawks (Sep 21, 2014)

A little back story...I have 2 goats in milk, have been since June. One is a Lamancha and one is a French Alpine. Both great milkers, I get 2 gallons a day. I had surgery on Wednesday so I wasn't able to milk for a few days, my husband and daughter took over but never got as much milk as I normally do. I started milking again yesterday. Everything was fine until tonight's milking. Both their milk was pink! What would cause both of them to produce pink milk tonight? I could understand one of them but both at the same milking? Udders are not warm and no physical damage that I can see. Of course they're producing a little less than normal but I expected that. Any ideas?


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

Burst blood vessels. Could have been the way they were milked.


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## Goat_Scout (Mar 23, 2017)

Yep, burst blood vessels. Sometimes our cows get it after calving because their udder just gets so full of milk. Maybe your husband and daughter didn't milk them out all the way? 

It is OK to drink if you were wondering....


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## rhawks (Sep 21, 2014)

Goat_Scout said:


> Yep, burst blood vessels. Sometimes our cows get it after calving because their udder just gets so full of milk. Maybe your husband and daughter didn't milk them out all the way?
> 
> It is OK to drink if you were wondering....


I know they didn't milk them all the way out. I just looked ast the jars from the last few days, they all have blood. Yesterday's was just more noticeable. As much as it's still uncomfortable to milk still I'll just keep doing it myself. Thanks


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## Goat_Scout (Mar 23, 2017)

I meant that maybe that's the reason for the broken blood vessels.
With our cows the "strawberry milk" as it's called usually goes away in a few days.


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

All good advice, I agree.


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## groovyoldlady (Jul 21, 2011)

If it doesn't go away quick enough for you, you can switch them temporarily to a lower protein grain (I have used a 12% protein horse grain from Tractor Supply). It will lower their milk output a bit and allow the udder to heal. Once the milk is clean you can slowly start upping the protein again.


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## rhawks (Sep 21, 2014)

groovyoldlady said:


> If it doesn't go away quick enough for you, you can switch them temporarily to a lower protein grain (I have used a 12% protein horse grain from Tractor Supply). It will lower their milk output a bit and allow the udder to heal. Once the milk is clean you can slowly start upping the protein again.


Thank you! I know it's safe to drink but mentally it's very hard knowing you're drinking blood.


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## groovyoldlady (Jul 21, 2011)

I couldn't do it when my LaMancha went through this. We dumped some of the milk and made some into soap. If I had chickens or pigs I wouldn't hesitate to feed it to them. Oh, but seeing blood pool on the bottom of the jars.....*shudder*

Lowering the protein REALLY helped for us. You can switch to the low protein grain pretty quickly. Then the trick is to start going back to the the higher protein grain s-l-o-w-l-y so the udder can adjust to the increased production with bursting more capillaries.


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