Is anyone aware of a source with the meaning of results of milk tests and what they should be for goats? I found several for cows (and not all the same) but none for goats.
For now, I am having Ginger's milk tested on a weekly basis to track butterfat, etc., during the first part of her lactation. However, tracking the info means little if I don't understand what it means. It seems it would be a good idea to know how the different parts interact.
Her results so far but I have no idea what most of it means as if high, medium or low (I added lbs.) - I hope I transferred all the numbers correctly:
(Day 14 and 15 were both sent because Day 14 was partially frozen briefly and I didn't know if that mattered.)
There is quite a range there for butterfat while I expected to see it more consistent. After seeing differences in butterfat, it tells me I might need to be more consistent regarding feeding, perhaps sunflower amounts or alfalfa pellets (which are more of a treat than feed, encouraging everyone to eat more hay).
I'm also interested in what those results are when her milk is finally yummy to drink. It's much, much better but still not "up to par." There are disadvantages to becoming a milk snob. The percent lactose shown here (and/or butterfat) isn't consistent with the flavor.
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I'm sure you could use the same lab I do. I'm in Washington and they test mine though the lab is in Oregon. It might be interesting to send a particular sample(s) to both labs for comparison. I seem to remember you said your lab only does single digit results but this one does double digit. So far, I have delivered my samples in person so have picked up the treated (preservatives) containers from them and time is not as critical as with no preservative.
Willamette DHIA, 3979 Silverton Rd NE, Salem, OR 97305
Phone: 503-362-1880 . . . Fax: 503-362-2051 . . . Email: office@wdhia.org
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
I am jealous! Only $3 a test?! The lab we use is in NY, and we're in Illinois, so I have to mail it, but they have a minimum of $20.
There is research that shows that butterfat goes up with sunflower seeds. I'll never forget the time that my husband was making cheese and was puzzling over the lower yield. I said, "Oh, I guess it's true about the sunflower seeds." He asked me to explain, and I told him that we'd run out of sunflower seeds a couple days earlier, and that they're supposed to increase butterfat. That night when I went to milk, there was a bag of sunflower seeds!
Glenna,
This is all such wonderful information. (My wife and I really enjoy your forthright postings!) Please keep us all informed as your recording progresses. Interesting info about the slight change in diet (banana skins! and sunflower seeds) making a change in milk production....
Thank you. I might combine two milkings in the future, either from night morning or morning night, or even a test from each the same day. The cost is $3 per sample so, unless I get carried away, it isn't horrifically expensive.
It is my intention to test the others as well. Since Dancer and Dollie are only due to kid this/next week, it will be a while before I start milking them to have samples to test. My thoughts were that since Ginger lost her kids and I have to milk anyway that it was a good opportunity to track it early. It is also going to give me some percentages that may or may not relate to flavor. I'm also interested if butterfat goes up as volume goes down.
I will say that, with Summer during the year and a half of milking, I learned that when she had a banana skin that milk production seemed to be up slightly. I've also noticed a relationship to sunflower seeds. I asked a local goat dairy farmer at the feed store one day if he feed sunflower seeds at all. He told me his milk production went up when he added them to the normal grain ration while verified my own observation. I will say if anyone feeds banana skins to be certain they are organic so no chemicals in sprays are introduced (I also wash the bananas before peeling them).
So, if all goes well, late next year I will have a year's worth of monthly results for my four girls. Of course, this depends on my follow-through!
Today is Day 142 for my youngest girls! Dancer is as round as a roly-poly toy and Dollie is finally starting to look expectant.
Butterfat and protein will vary some from one milking to the next, so if you want a more "average" number, then mixing the milk from two milkings would do that. But if you want to know what the butterfat is from a single milking, then you can do that also. Official milk test only happens once a month, so I think it's really cool that you're doing this weekly. I wish I lived close enough to a lab to be able to do something like this! I find it fascinating! Wish you had more goats that you were milking. It would be interesting to see the numbers.
Each test was from a single milking, usually morning. Are you saying that I should mix the milk from 24-hours of milking for the test?
While this is primarily for my own information, I will want to go on official milk test later. I need to do whatever is needed to prepare for it. Barn records are fine for me but Milk Stars might make a doeling (and her own babies) more valuable.
MUN is Milk Urea Nitrogen, whatever that means - it came from a cow test results site.
Often, I take the samples to the lab in person, so I will ask questions. Primarily my interest in butterfat, but the same test lists its all if requested.
If that was just a single milking, I can understand why the numbers are not perfectly consistent. When you are on milk test, they have you do two or three tests in a 24 hours period, and mix the milk, so you're getting closer to an average of their butterfat and protein. The differences in your lactose are not statistically significant.
SCC stands for somatic cell count, and it's a measurement that may indicate mastitis because a goat with mastitis may shed somatic cells into her milk. SCC counts on goats are always higher than on cows because they just shed more SC than cows do, so it's not as good of a predictor of mastitis in goats as it is in cows. You need to get your lab's conversion chart because those are not real SCC numbers. Normally with goats you don't worry until they are at 750,000, but because those numbers are so big, most labs have a chart with numbers that correspond to ranges. For example, I don't worry unless I see an SCC at 6 or higher from our lab because that correlates to 750,000. The highest number I would see from our lab is a 9, so they're obviously using a different conversion chart than your lab. On my milk reports I can find the SCC chart at the bottom of the page.
I have not seen MUN on our test results and don't know what that is. It's not something that ADGA cares about. You should ask your lab for an explanation.
That is odd. They were there when I saved and closed it. I'll try again here.
That didn't work but it shows a broken image when I go to edit. So I will use a jpg instead.
Sorry it is so "crowded" but that is the best way to have the entire image to display at once.
I'm not seeing the results.