# goat stepped in milk bucket



## gaida (Feb 9, 2013)

I'm a newbie goat owner, didn't pull the bucket out in time when I saw her raise that leg.... : )

So.... can I feed that milk to a young doeling I'm still bottle feeding? Make soap out of it? Lotion? or what other uses rather than just pouring it down the drain? It's filtered and in the fridge awaiting your thoughts.....


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## Angelknitter12 (Feb 16, 2012)

I would use it for soap.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

If it happened to me, I would heat treat it and feed it to the doeling right away. I wouldn't let it sit and incubate whatever might have got into it.


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## Sans Gene Goats (May 15, 2011)

Aaargh - I hate when they do that! I had one this morning knock the bucket over because I was careless and left it under her while I got up to get something off the shelf *only would take a second*... ha! She showed me it only took a second to stomp at a fly and there goes the pail.

For foot actually going into the milk - I would use it for soap only. Unless her toesies had just been thoroughly scrubbed with disinfectant and not touched the ground since, the milk will be contaminated with fecal matter, so I would not feed it to youngstock unless I had no other choice. If that were the case, I would boil it first (pastuerizing temps (145-155) may not be high enough to kill some contaminants from the ground or direct fecal contamination).


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

My feeling is that babies are ingesting fecal material and heaven knows what off the ground all day long, so it doesn't concern me to feed it to babies right away. But I like to live in the wild side, lol.

I don't milk into a bucket though. When I hand milk, I milk into something I can hold in one hand, and I dump it in a bucket to the side. The most trained goat will kick at a fly now and then, and I hate to loose my milk.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

I would feed it to the chickens or pour on the garden or compost pile. It does make decent fertilizer. I wouldn't want milk in my soap that had a goat's dirty foot in it, for my own personal use, much less to sell to others.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

And yikes, definitely NOT lotion! Lotion has to be clean, clean, clean.


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

As hot as soap gets, wouldn't that kill any germs?


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

It probably would, as would the lye, but I wouldn't want to use it. That's just me. The way I see it is this: Would my customers, if they knew that the milk I used to make their soap had goat poop and urine and whatever else residue in it, be happy with my choice to use that in their products? If I think that the answer is likely to be no (and really, that seems a no-brainer to me) then I'm not going to do it. If it didn't bother me personally, then using it in soap for home use would be ok, IMO. I agree, there aren't any germs getting past the lye. But that isn't the only issue.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

I give it to the dogs as is. Heck they go around eating chicken poo voluntarily.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Yeah, dogs would be another good option.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Without the bacteria, poop is just dirt and fiber and whatever undigested stuff. In whatever minuscule amount is in the milk doesn't matter in soap, shouldn't matter if the bacteria is dead.


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

If it doesn't matter in soap to you, that's fine. I don't want it in my soap and I tend to think that my customers don't, either. Besides, I have enough milk for drinking and turning into cheese or other things, in addition to making soap and lotion that it's not like I'll miss any if a goat steps into the bucket once in a great while and I end up feeding it to the chickens.


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## gaida (Feb 9, 2013)

Thanks all. I ended up heating it up and adding it to my bath water. Her hoof wasn't sterile, but I gotta say, I saw nothing in the milk to make me too worried, and I heated it pretty high beforehand anyway. andit was a fantastic skin soother! I have plenty of milk so determined I might as well not give it to the youngster, tho I do concur that they must get a fair amount of dirt when they're nursing anyway.


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