"Dumb" question for dairy cow owners

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Okay, I know this sounds dumb, but it is something I really don't understand. I don't post often, but those of you who know my posts, know that I was raised on a small dairy with mostly Guernseys, and occasional Jerseys, and I had my own Guernseys my entire married life until my beloved Valentine died at 17 years old, and I couldn't find another Guernsey for love nor money...at which point I got Lamancha dairy goats. (1995) Finally, I have gotten a springing Guernsey due in February, but intend to keep the goat girls, 'cuz their milk is that good, and they are endearing creatures. To my question, however. A dear friend, who I met through this forum, drove about 200 miles each way, today, to get us some wonderful whole Jersey raw milk...it is fantastic, of course. And it looked just like I remembered--it was in one gallon "pickle" jugs, with that 4 or 4 1/2 inches of yellow cream on top.That sounds, I'm sure, about what most of you that have cows are used to....me too. BUT: read any book, go to any web site, and at the top of the scale, they will tell you that Jerseys give 6% butterfat, Guernseys a little over 5%. Lamanchas 4.0% I got 2/3 of a quart of cream off of each gallon, making sure there was only cream, leaving a good 1/4 inch of cream left on top of each gallon, to stir back in--we didn't want "skim" milk for drinking. So what I separated out as cream would be more like 20% cream--or butterfat, or butterfat plus solids-non-fat, or whatever. I realize the goat milk is "naturally" homogenized, so I'm not talking about that, although, thinking about it, I get the better part of a pint off a gallon of goat's milk, once it has set several days. So how do they measure the percentage of butterfat (I know it's done with a test tube, centrifuge, etc.) what I mean is, why do we all end up with so much more than is possible "by the book"? Has anyone else ever thought about this, or do we all just skim off our cream and count our blessings as we make our butter and ice cream? Kathie

-- Kathie in Western Washington (twinrosefarm@centurytel.net), September 21, 2001

Answers

You've got two things working here, Kathie. The first thing you should realize is that Jerseys give 6% milk, Guernseys 5% milk and La Manchas 4% milk *on average* over a whole lactation. But the butterfat percentage varies during the lactation, with more butterfat being produced at the end of the lactation (and at the very beginning). So your 6% Jersey could be making 9% milk now after having made 5% milk all summer. The average would still work out to 6%.

The other thing is that although you skimmed as best as you could, you couldn't skim just the butterfat. Heavy cream contains only 40% butterfat by definition, so 60% of the volume you skimmed was milk, not pure butterfat.

-- Julia (charmer24@juno.com), September 21, 2001.


Kathie, you would really see the comparrison more if you made butter, true butterfat, out of each of the milks. My daughter did this for a science fair project. Of course goats milk has smaller particles of fat, which are naturally homoginized making it impossible to get all of the butterfat out of the milk. Goat milk that has been put through an electric cream seperator will have cream rise afterwards. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), September 21, 2001.

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