Milk Test Day

Milk Out!

12 hours before your test day begins, milk everyone out and separate kids from their dams.

1st Milking

If your milk out was at 7pm, your first milking will be at 7am. I milk into mason jars labeled by goat. On this test day I seriously underestimated how much Circe and Athena were producing and had to run back to the house for additional jars. Next time I will use a larger jar!

Weigh the Milk

I pour each doe's milk into a bucket for easier weighing/sampling. Round to the nearest tenth of a pound.

Take a Sample

Use a small ladle and fill the sample vial to the half-way mark. The preservative will dye the milk a light orange. Keep these vials at room temperature and out of the sun.

2nd Milking

If your first milking out was at 7am, your second milking will be at 7pm. It should be exactly 24 hours since your milk out. Weigh the milk and fill the sample vials to the line just below the top. The vials can now be refrigerated.

Paperwork!

Blech! Just kidding. After you've done this a few times it's pretty easy and if you make a mistake your DHIA will probably catch it and correct it for you. This is the paperwork for Amelicor. Other processing centers will have different formats but all of the same information should be there somewhere.

Milking Times

"WGH" is weighed and "SAM" is sampled. This will almost always be the number of does on test but it can change if a doe kicks over the milk bucket (nothing to weigh or sample) or if you accidentally dump a doe's milk into a communal jar before taking a sample. It happens!

Write down your start and stop times for each milking using military time. Don't forget the date (top right) and your signature!

New Does and Processing Fees

This is where you add new goats in milk to your herd. You only need to do this once for each doe.

• N/C: Write "N" in the first box if you are adding a new doe. Write "C" if you are correcting information of a doe that has already been on test.

• Control No: Choose a number, any number! It just needs to be unique to that doe while she is in your herd.

• Birthdate: The doe's date of birth.

• Barn Name or No: What name do you want to see on this doe's milk test records?

• Registration or E.T. No: The registration number assigned to this doe by her registry. UPDATE: Do NOT include the letters before the numbers.

• Breed: This is an acronym. "ND" is Nigerian Dwarf. A full list of breed acronyms can be found on the CDCB website.

• Sire: Name, registration number, and breed code of the doe's sire.

• Dam: Name, registration number, and breed code of the doe's dam.

• Lactation Number: How many times has this doe kidded? A first freshener would be on lactation number 1.

Processing Fees: The number in the bottom right is what Amelicor charges to process this herd's data. Add this to the lab fees when you send your DHIA a check or money order.

Kidding Info and Milk Weights

New does only need to be added to this sheet once - their information will be printed on your next set of forms. Remember the date and your signature at the top!

• Breed: I don't know why, but instead of being "ND" for Nigerian Dwarf, here it is "RD" for Registered Dwarf.

• Name/Number: Barn name and registration number

• C: "Calf ID" - The number and sex of kids born

• S: "Sire of Calf" - The sire's name

• Date: The month and day a doe either kidded or was dried off. You can write on top of the previously printed dates.

• Code: There is a list of codes at the bottom of the sheet. "1" is for kidding unless it's a first freshener. First fresheners ("heifers") get a code "2". Code "6" is for dry dates.

• Control or Chain Number: This should match what you wrote on the previous sheet. Looks like I forgot to copy over Circe's number. Oops!

• Sample Number: This is the number you write on the lid of the sample vial. UPDATE: WADHIA prefers the sample number to match the control number. I'll do this on my next test!

• Milk weights: Milk weights to the tenth of a pound for your first and second milkings (am/pm doesn't matter) and the totals.

Label and Tape the Sample Vials

Write the sample number directly on the lid and then wrap the vial in painter's or masking tape. Leave a little extra to fold over into a tab to make tape removal easier at the lab. I also write the sample number on the tape so I can double check everything is in order before I package my samples. No double or missing numbers.

Package and Mail Vials and Paperwork

Put your paperwork and sample vials in separate ziplock bags. I can fit up to 5 samples in these small bubble mailers. Anything more and I would use a box.

Pat Yourself on the Back!

Congratulations, you just completed a milk test! This will eventually become routine and easy. You're going to love all the data you get!

A Few Days Later...

Lab results! Check out Interpreting Milk Test Data to figure out what it all means!