Ok, I looked around for a while (this site and others) regarding average milk quantity NDs produce. I've come up with around 1-3 quarts. Sound about right? My wife and I drink a lot of milk, 5 gallons each week (20quarts). We are recently married, but there will be little additions in the future, so as a family we have potential to drink quite a bit of milk. We drink skim milk *gasp* I know, I know... but with that said, We are considering Nigerian Dwarfs. We have fallen love with the breed because of their sweet temperments, size and managability. We will hope to make cheese, butter, buttermilk, sour cream, MILK, basically most (if not all) of our dairy needs.
Here's my real question. based on the average production, after cream seperation (for skim milk, and butter production) how much milk is left? We by no means want a dairy farm, rather a small homestead that we can enjoy growing and supplying our needs. After the cream is seperated, are we left with half as much milk, a 3/4ths? If anyone has some insight, it would be greatly appreciated!
Jeremiah
Replies
At times we have watered down our milk because we didn't have time to run the cream seperator. Not as good as when you've done the cream seperator, but still better than the store in my opinion.
Hi Jeremiah,
On another post somewhere in this group someone was talking about shaking the whole milk to make butter without first separating the cream out. I don't think this is possible with all goats, but evidently it works with Nigerian milk =) Saves having to buy a cream separator or wait for the cream to rise to the top (which takes a few days).
Kare
Thank you all! I guess I didn't put two and two together. I knew the butterfat percentage. I suppose that once we start milking we might change our minds regarding seperating, but in some quantity we will need to seperate in order to make butter, etc.
Deborah, I love your website and blog. I've been reading various posts this week. We can't wait 'till your book comes out!
Almost all of the milk is left -- as in 93-95% of it. Butterfat is "only" 5-7% for NDs. Milk is somewhere around 85-87% water. Even after making cheese, you wind up with more than 75% coming back as whey. I should weigh it sometime. That's why we have pigs. Because we make all of our own dairy products, the chickens couldn't really keep up with all the whey, and you can only make so much bread and gjetost. It makes for some yummy pork!
If you're interested in self-sufficiency, you might want to visit my website, www.antiquityoaks.com and my blog http://antiquityoaks.blogspot.com. I have a book coming out in September called "Homegrown and Handmade" about growing and making all of your own food. A big chunk of the book is on home dairy.