Is it okay to feed my "kids" milk from the grocery store? The local farm went out of business and I have nowhere to get fresh milk any more, and I am not real fond of this milk replacer. A neighbor told me pastuerized milk could kill my goats. Thanks for your help.

-- Ginger (majic99@home.com), January 29, 2001

Answers

Response to milk

I don't think store milk is even very good for humans, I personally would not feed it to a kid except as a last resort. I tried it with a lamb once and the lamb died. Unfortunately, the milk replacer is also made out of procesed cow's milk, with other stuff added. Can you possibly get whole, fresh cow's milk and freeze it? Or if you could drive a distance and get several gallons of pastuerized goat's milk (or pasteurize it yourself), and freeze it in quantities small enough to use before it spoils. The kids would probably survive on the store milk, but whether they would reach their optimum potential is another question.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), January 29, 2001.

Response to milk

Ginger,if you can't get pasteurized goat milk then use the milk replacer.Be sure it is KID milk replacer.Most feed store clerks will tell you that calf replacer is the same thing.Taint so.Kid milk replacer has much more fat and some necessary goat minerals. Pasteurized milk won't hurt your goats and if using goat milk it should be pasteurized. Purina sells a good kid milk replacer. Rebecka's advice to drive somewhere and buy goat milk (pasteurized) is the best way to go.Kid milk replacer second,store bought whole cows milk a distant third.

-- JT in Florida (gone2seed@hotmail.com), January 29, 2001.

Response to milk

The pastuerizing isn't the problem. Many breeders pastuerize all milk fed to the kids (part of CAE prevention). Cow milk and goat milk have some basic differences. Feeding grocery store cow milk can give your goats a very bad case of scours, which can result in death. Even if they did survive they would probably have health problems. Have you tried the milk replacers made specifically for goats? Caprine Supply has some, www.caprinesupply.com ,so do several other goat supply cataloges just don't have their info handy.

-- Nancy Bakke-McGonigle Mn. Sunset (dmcgonig@smig.net), January 29, 2001.

Response to milk

I have had fairly good luck with the Purina brand or Land'o Lakes Goat Milk replacer, but goats milk would surely be better. Even if you couldn't buy it pasturized you could pasturize yourself by bringing to 164 degrees for one minute on the stove and then cool.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), January 29, 2001.

Response to milk

Ginger, I had to augment my milk supply for the kids this spring and the milk replacers were both super$$$$$ and had animal protein in it, which is a definite no no in dairy goat feeding. I augmented the goats milk with whole vitamin D cows milk and they all grew very well and I had no problems with scours at all. None. I would suggest that a combination would be the way to go and DO pastuerize. If they have had colostrum, which I found out recently can also be pastuerized, they should fare just fine. Be cautious about feeding them too much or cold milk and you'll do just fine. Of course goats milk would be best, but if it isn't possible I think mixing the two isn't problematic.

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), January 29, 2001.

Response to milk

Ginger all kids that are sold at my farm that go to farms with no goat milk are put onto Vitamin D Grocery store milk. Most of the milk replacers use soy as their protein which causes scours. I have never had a case of scours in a grocery store milk fed kid. Now feed the milk to cold and of course! Even I have been known to top some bottles off with grocery store milk if I am running low on house milk! I think it is a much more consitant product than replacer, and very few folks are going to use the high dollar replacers for very long, before hubby grabs the 50 pound cheapo calf replacer! The folks who told you that pasturised milk will kill your goats? Need not be getting any more information from them! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), January 29, 2001.

Hi ginger,

Just wanted to share our recent experience with feeding a kid store milk. We had kids in November, but the mothers had kidded earlier in the year and their production was down, so we had one kid whose mother wouldn't let her eat. We fed her on goats milk for the first month, and I was draining every drop too! But then she required more, so hubby decided out of necessity to feed her store milk. she has been on store cow milk for about a month and is doing fine. I never had to do this before as we always had milk, but then we never had kids before in November either. Guess there is a first time for everything. And..... to tell the truth about it.... i recalled Vicki mentioning eons ago in a post someplace about using cow milk from the store so when DH tried it I wasn't too worried. Good luck and hope your little one is doing fine.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), January 30, 2001.

Ginger, We have never fed our baby goats on store milk. We have used Carnation Calf milk replacer with no ill affects and we have used Land-O-lakes kid milk replacer and saw no difference in the health or growth of the kids using that or the calf milk replacer. If you use goats milk and the goat providing the milk is not CAE negative then the goats milk must be pasteurized to prevent the possibility of passing this on to the kid. There are many excellent books on raising goats and goat health and it would be woth your while to invest in a couple. Artie Ann

-- Artie Ann Karns (rokarns@arkansas.net), January 31, 2001.

Hi, I fed an orphan buck kid on store milk, it was pasturized goat's milk and he grew up to be a very nice pygmy. Of course he was spoiled rotten and we didn't think cow's milk would be good for him. Talk about expensive..each can was 16oz and cost $2.00. And we bought cases of that stuff cause we couldn't find a goat dairy around here. Ever take a baby goat to the office before? Now people think I am really strange...

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), February 03, 2001.

Now correct me if I'm mistaken, because our family has never, EVER, pasturized our goat milk. From teat to bucket to strainer to mason jar to fridge to our table... for six or seven years, now. The way it was explained to my wife was something like this: The bacteria, or whatever, that is present in cow-milk, that requires us to pasturize it, is NOT present in goat's milk. Pasturization = not needed. Also, from the way we heard it, the milkfat, etc. is broken into such micro sized particles in the goat, that the milk is essentially PRE-homogenized. Again, I've been wrong on a hundred counts about other things, so please enlighten me. If we've been doin' it wrong, you sure couldn't tell from the taste. Mmmm-Mmmm !

-- Action Dude (theactiondude@yahoo.com), February 05, 2001.

ActionDude, I think it is important to know that a lot of diseases are passed in the milk. T.B. for one can be. In our state with the T.B. in some of the deer herd, unless you can always be certain no deer has come near your feed lot, it would be risky to drink the milk without pasturization. Disease is passed the same through cows milk or goats milk. The properties of the fat molecules and the type of acid (lactic as oposed to carpric)sp? makes no never mind when it comes to disease. Good clean handling of the milk will most definately preserve the taste and cut down on the external contamination of bacteria, but will not keep the disease the cow or goat might be carrying from being passed in the milk.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), February 05, 2001.

Here's a true story. Child pulls a hay bale off the pile and puts it in the feeder, child doesn't notice the mold on the hay. Milkers, both of them are infected with the septicemic form of Listeriosis. Not only was this passed on to the goat kids, who died, but the youngest child in the family was hospitalized. The does recovered. The child recovered. It had the potential for disaster. There are so many zoonic diseases out there: These are secreted in just the milk, Bruecellosis, CL, Cryptococcosis, Leptospirosis, Listeriosis, Louping Ill, Melioidosis, Qfever, Staph, Toxoplasmosis, Tuberculosis. These are in the fecal which then can contaminate the milk: Campylobacteriosis, Cryptospondiosis, Escherichia coli (E coli) Listerosis, Salmonellosis, Yersiniosis. And...not all staph is killed in pasturization. Goat Medicine also has a report of skeletal abnormalities and red cell aplasia in a child in California whose mother drank goat milk from goats grazing lupine. Puppies from a dog fed the goat milk were also malformed. The list also includes those from grain containing afloxin. Have I bored you to tears? :) Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 05, 2001.

Okay, I will start pasteurizing all of my milk now. Sheesh. I have always done it like the fellow above EXCEPT for pastuerizing for the kids and I put it in the freezer for an hour or two prior to refrigerating it. Now I am creeped out. Bye.

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), February 05, 2001.

Diane and Vicki, Thank you for your responses. I'll probably be looking into a pasteurizer this spring. I'm curious to know if it messes up the flavor, but probably better safe than sorry. God bless you, both.

-- Action Dude (theactiondude@yahoo.com), February 05, 2001.