THE FIRST MILK FROM OUR GOAT

High-colostrum miracle milk to add to our supply of on-hand animal husbandry must haves!

For those of you who do not know, the earliest milk that a mother produces for her young is some amazing stuff. When an animal like this is first born, it goes through the greatest environment change of its life. Instead of being inside the womb of its mother, with a consistent temperature, a dark and wet surrounding, and receiving nourishment and oxygen from its mother, it is now in the dry, bright world, with fluctuating temperatures where it has to breathe and drink for itself.

At this crucial point in the young mammals life, this colostrum plays a crucial role in helping the baby survive. The wonders of colostrum are many, but it is worth pointing out that it is high in immune cells and antibodies. For this reason, it can be an incredible supply to have on hand. While artificial and dehydrated forms do exist, there is nothing like the real thing.

GETTING A SUPPLY OT KEEP ON HAND

The @little-peppers have milked some goats before, but this was the first time for @papa-pepper. Once we had made sure to give our newborn bucking "King" a good opportunity to get as much colostrum as he needed right away, we decided to milk out a bit of the first day colostrum to keep in the freezer. When animals get sick or have issues, a good shot of colostrum can bounce them back into full health sometimes like nothing else.

Today we plan on building a milking stand. We would have build one ahead of time, but we didn't even know that Daisy had been bred before we picked her up. While milking her on the ground may be slightly more difficult, it's not that bad of a task.

It is really exciting for us to have milked our goat already. Originally, we had thought that this event would be months off. It was a delightful surprise, and we have adjusted quickly. The high colostrum milk is much yellower than regular milk too. In some countries, people even make special cheeses out of it or use it for human consumption. We will show you our milking stand once we get it, but just wanted to share this exciting news with you.

So far King is still doing great. He likes to wag his tail a lot and seems to be a happy little guy. We also have some interesting news about Crocket, our young buck, but we've got some things to do with him before we make a post about that. Also, although we've milked more, you can see a bit of it in the proof photo below.

When we milk her for human consumption we will take more time and milk a larger amount, but we were not trying to drain out a large amount of her colostrum the first day. We want to give King the best chance of survival and allowing him to get all of the benefits of the colostrum that he can will help.