Milking Goats

 Having an afternoon cocktail, and surfing YouTube, I was watching Mike Rowe milk goats, and I was reminded of the time I milked goats for a few months.  Well, one goat, at least.

When the kids were small, we had a hobby farm, and with the cows, and later the horses, we had a few goats, mainly to control the brush.  Goats are hell on brush, especially the kind of brush that has stickers. For example, a goat will eat a rose bush right down to the roots.  Ask me how I know that.

Anyway, during what I call our Earth Mother stage, we had a few goats.  One of them, a sweet little doe with floppy ears.  A nubian.  Someone told us that she would make a great milk goat.  So, we bred her for milk.  About that same time, an infant was born down the bayou who did not tolerate cows milk.   We arranged a swap with the parents so that we would trade one days supply of goat milk for one days supply of cows milk.  They were milking a nice Jersey cow.  This worked out for a while, and we were overloaded with milk.  The infant thrived, and we did too.

If you have never made biscuits with milk straight off the doe, you don't know what you are missing.  Goat milk is naturally homogenized, that is, the bitter fat does not separate from the milk.  Anytime you make biscuits with 20% butterfat, the biscuits are magical. So are the pancakes, and any other bread you might like to bake.