I have seen (but cannot recall where) a conversion of weight to volume for Nigerian dwarf milk.
Can anyone help me please? Approximately how much volume is in a pound of Nigerian dwarf milk?
Thanks,
Michael
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Thanks for the replies....
Tom, (and others)
My question came about because I was asked here in Australia how much was a "reasonable" volume to expect from the average Nigerian doe when in milk. In the process of trying to get Nigerian dwarf goats taken up into the registry of the Dairy Goat Society of Australia (DGSA) as an officially recognised breed of dairy goat (able to be shown in DGSA shows, registry maintained by DGSA, etc.), a case had to be made that the breed actually IS a dairy goat rather than a "cute factor" little goat.
I recognise that keeping records by weight is preferable and much easier than by volume, especially because one need not have a completely separate sterile assortment of measurement containers, into and out of which the milk is transferred at each milking, etc.
Australia, like most of the rest of the world, is a "metric" country. It is an easy task to find milk records for Nigerians expressed by weight and the weights are easily converted from pounds to grams. Since I was asked about volume, I had nothing on which to base an amount. I was hoping somebody had actually kept a volume record of the production of a doe, either as a one day record, or as a full lactation record.
I know that fat is lighter than the water component, but short of doing speculative calculations, "guesstimating" the density of the protein and fat components, I was at a loss.
In the end, I said a good doe (not a first freshener) can produce 1.25 to 2.5 litres per day. That is a big variation, and a wild "back of the envelope" calculation, but I just have no experience to do better.
Note: Today, 24 May, at the annual meeting of the DGSA, the committee decided NOT to take up Nigerian dwarf goats as a new breed. Maybe next year..., when there are actually some Nigerians actually on the ground here in Australia.... I suppose one can reflect on the trouble getting Nigerians taken up by ADGA in the U.S. and see the uphill battle.
Hi Michael,
I can't answer your question exactly, but if you are asking it because you are finding some of the information available is confusing I might be able to shed some light on the problem. The problem may come from the different meaning of pint in Australia (and the UK) compared to the US.
For instance the above statement that water weighs 8 pounds per gallon is approximately true in the US (a US gallon actually weighs just over 8 pounds five ounces) but it is not true in Australia, because pint and gallon have different meanings in the two countries.
An Australian (and UK) gallon of water weighs 10 pounds (that's the definition of an imperial gallon). An imperial pint (which is defined as 1/8 of an imperial gallon) weighs 1 1/4 pounds (20 ounces), or 568 millilitres. In the US a liquid pint is 474 ml or 16 US fluid ounces - not only is a pint different in the US compared to Australia, so is a fluid ounce (an imperial fluid ounce is around 4% smaller than a US fluid ounce - getting all my conversion info from Wikipedia so hope it is correct).
Anyway, a US liquid pint is only 0.83 imperial pints.
As far as the weight of milk goes, when I weighed some cows milk (low fat) it was around 5% heavier than water - so the weight of Nigerian dwarf milk would vary a bit from that depending on the butterfat and solids content as explained above.
Anyway, to avoid the international conversion (or international confusion :) we could say that given the volume of a pound of water is 454ml, the volume of a pound of my low fat cows milk is about 430ml (since it is about 5% heavier than water) so, to finally give an answer to your question, I'm guessing that 430ml would be reasonably close to the volume of a pound of Nigerian Dwarf milk.
Apologies if this gives everyone a headache :)
That's what I was thinking... if there was a different formula, that it would be different with each batch, not based on breed alone. Thanks for helping us get through the early morning brain fog, Joan! Makes perfect sense to find out based on that particular goat/milking by weighing and then measuring to see how much there is there in volume. PERFECT sense!! lol
No milk is not 8 lbs per gallon. That is the weight of water. Milk has a different density than water. That might be a rough approximation but it is not accurate.
It will vary depending on butterfat and solids and foam of the milk.
You can get answers for cows milk on the internet. For your own goats, just pour a pound of it into a measuring cup or vice versa just weigh a pint or quart of it on a kitchen scale I suspect it varies a tiny bit depending on the time of lactation when there is either more or less butterfat.
I'm not sure I understand what your question is... there isn't any difference in the volume/weight of Nigerian milk than there is in other milk that I know of... are you talking about butterfat content? That is different. It varies, but as a rule, Nigerians have about double the amount of butterfat than full sized dairy breed goats. THAT translates to be twice a much butter and cheese per lb. of milk from a Nigerian than you would get from that same lb. of milk from a large breed.
Milk is 2 lbs per quart. 8 per gallon.