# Anybody pasture feed their milk goats?



## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

I put my two adult does out in our one acre pasture all day every day. Living in south Louisiana, everything is so pretty and green and fresh right now! The girls LOVE it! Tons of clover and browse. But, at night when I go to milk our one doe in milk, it's TERRIBLE! Nasty and bitter. In the morning however, It's 90% good. Meaning it's almost perfect. So, I'm assuming it's all the browse she's eating during the day. One of the reasons we got them was to keep our second acre cleared enough so that we wouldn't have as much upkeep over there. But if we can't drink her milk because of it..... I'm pretty bummed! And there is no way to figure out what she is eating that's giving the nasty taste, we have probably 100 different plant varieties in that one acre! :GAAH: I really don't want to keep her penned up all the time just so that I can have the milk, but I'm not sure what else to do. Anybody else deal with this? And if so, what do you do?


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

Mine are pasture/browse only in the summer and their milk tastes fine. There might be one specific thing on your property that's causing it.


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

Maybe it's everything blooming or something. I'm keeping her off today, and will see how her milk is tonight- make sure that's what the problem is, then just go from there, I guess!


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

There are tons of these pretty yellow flowers covering the whole plot. I have a sneaking suspicion that's what it could be, but I'm not sure how to go about confirming it.


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

Buttercups? They're mildly toxic, although goats don't usually have a problem. They are supposed to be more of an issue when they're in bloom, so if the milk improves today you could keep them off until the flowers die back then try letting them out again.


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

I just looked up the flowers that I suspected, and yep! Buttercups. Milk tainting plants. Yuck! Not lethal, but just leaves your milk tasting bad. I'll just keep her penned until they die off, I guess. Since my WHOLE property is covered in them! Wonder if there is some way I could kill them next year?


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## Sweetpea8 (Jun 6, 2013)

I have heard with cows that if you pen them with hay to eat, the taste of their milk will be good even if they were on pasture the rest of the day before that. I haven't tried it though. We have lots of buttercups , but my goats refuse to eat them.


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

Sweetpea8 said:


> I have heard with cows that if you pen them with hay to eat, the taste of their milk will be good even if they were on pasture the rest of the day before that. I haven't tried it though. We have lots of buttercups , but my goats refuse to eat them.


My goats hit the buttercups FIRST! :sigh: I think tomorrow I may let her out in the morning, then pick her up around lunch time and see how that goes. I hate to keep her penned up!


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

Oh, and yesterday I penned her up around 5 with her alfalfa hay, but didn't do the milking till 9..... it still tasted terrible!


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

My dad said they had that problem with cows. Pull her in a couple hours before milking and see if that helps. Dad said it would clear the taste up in cows milk....


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

And I should read to bottom of thread. Lol. Try without any hay...


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

kccjer said:


> And I should read to bottom of thread. Lol. Try without any hay...


I will try this tomorrow!


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## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Haha, good luck with that. Buttercups seem to encircle the globe with a common root system, they may be the spawn of the devil, the only way to effectively get rid of them is to move...

Here's what I've been told to do. Heavily lime in the fall, fix drainage to clear water faster, use 2,4-D broadleaf killer, fix soil fertility. In return the Buttercups laugh and spread further.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

We overseed with grass seed both in spring and fall. It takes a few years but we have had good results with seriously thinning out weeds we don't like that way. We also lime once a year. We did this on 2 different properties with same results.

Most people would consider all that overseeding a waste of money but we had nice lush pastures that the animals couldn't keep up with and significantly fewer weeds that we didn't like.


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## Wild Hearts Ranch (Dec 26, 2011)

Yeah, I've heard that pH and moisture are key factors in clearing them up. I've only had them in patches in wet areas so haven't been too concerned with it.


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## janeen128 (Dec 31, 2012)

My fields are full of buttercups, and my milk from my 4 does taste great. Do you grain them? I grain all my milking does, still graining the boys some too, but not for long on them..;-) I also give alfalfa pellets.


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## kccjer (Jan 27, 2012)

while there are a couple on here that will argue all day that what they eat doesn't matter, but it does. I can remember getting milk from the dairy down the road and in the spring when they turned cows out on green pasture....that milk was HORRIBLE! Awful! Blech! You get the idea. LOL Then....in the fall, they'd bring them in and dry lot them and that milk was HORRIBLE! Awful! Blech! LOL It was a change in what they were eating and it absolutely changed the taste of the milk. You will get use to the change, but in the meantime....it's awful hard to choke it down.


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## Moushey1 (Apr 21, 2014)

If I were "in your shoes" I'd probably weigh out my options and the financial aspects of different ideas.
I would likely go with: Well the fields are lush and I don't need to buy hardly any hay when the fields grow like this, so the awful tasting milk is very cheap to produce. The problem is who or what would eat or drink it? Pigs!! I would get a couple of pigs to raise through this time. Two, not one. One pig doesn't grow fast. Two pigs grow faster, because they stimulate each other to eat AKA fight for food. Then, if I didn't need or want the meat, I'd sell it. This way I'm not dumping milk and $ in the compost pile. And all the while we'd be using the yummy milk that we get in the morning. :yum:
As far as the field goes: I've been weed/feeding my pasture for a few years now. Mostly because I don't like off flavored milk.  When I weed and feed I have to have a different place to put the animals for awhile, since I keep them off at least a month after putting chemicals on the ground. So, while they are off the pasture they go to a "sacrifice" area and then they eat a bunch of hay while they're there, just like in winter. I choose to weed and feed at the end of winter and sometimes at the end of summer (but I use the winterizer version if I do it then). This is a time of the year that the fields aren't growing much anyway.
Before I did this to my pasture, the weeds were coming in fast. We had our pasture graded when we moved here 8 years ago, so I started with the best pasture mix seed I could find. So, I planted the field 8 years ago and it only took a few years for the pasture mix planted field to look like I had weeds in the seed mix I started with. After one year of weeding and feeding, the pasture began to look great again. 
Just my humble $0.02.::


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

Yeah, the whole moisture thing? Let me remind all of y'all, I live in south LOUISIANA! LOL! People are born with gills here, because you will be in more contact with water than air.  All my husband needs to hear is 'pig' and I'll have a whole herd of them, not just one or two. He wants to be a pig farmer! I don't see that as an option at this point.... Our neighbors complained about the smell last time we had pigs! I'll just have to tough it out I guess... Right now I have baby goats that are drinking the milk, so at least its not going bad.


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## canyontrailgoats (Jan 4, 2014)

The buttercups are tainting the milk, huh? I'm having the same problem, but with wild onions. Everything smells bad now: the milk, their breath, the manure, the house...it's gross!
So I know what you mean lol


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

What they eat can and most of the time will influence the flavor of the milk. The reason the milk buy from the store always tastes the same is they always get the same thing to eat and always AFTER milking and are not on pasture. Even giving a few hours after they eat to when you milk can make a big difference. Kinda like what you are seeing with your morning milk I would guess. I hear that baking soda can clean up the taste of the milk but I have never had to use it in that way as we are more or less dry lotted.


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

Oh, I can't remember who asked, but she gets all she can eat grain twice a day while milking.  
I think I may see if I can weed some of it out next year. Or, maybe I'll just move!!


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## janeen128 (Dec 31, 2012)

I would give the baking soda a try....;-)


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

Do I just sprinkle the baking soda on her food?


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## janeen128 (Dec 31, 2012)

I've never done it that way before, but I don't think it would hurt. I would wait to hear someone else's opinion though.


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

I've been researching it, and from what I read I can leave it free choice, and/or just sprinkle a pinch on her feed. Think I'll give it a try tomorrow, and see if it makes a difference. Oh, and after being penned all day, her milk was good tonight. So I now know FOR SURE that something she was eating (probably the buttercups) is tainting her milk.


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

The baking soda should up the butterfat level so Id think you might see a different on the following feed if dont a certain times. We actually tried to give it free choice over the course a few days last year. They ate so much of it, our stock pile was gone. So now we just add a box or two to their mineral mix... when we remember and more to keep their rumin balanced then for milk taste. We dont have a problem there.


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## sbaker (Nov 11, 2012)

I buy baking soda in bulk anyway, so I have tons! I'll definitely be trying this. I forgot to give it to her this morning, but I'm going to go out and mix some with her minerals right now. Thanks for all the suggestions guys!


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## cybercat (Oct 18, 2007)

Here is an idea. Next breeding keep the boys and let them eat or what pasture. That way your doe does not eat it.

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