Becoming a certified milk tester for your goats can offer several benefits:
1. Quality Assurance - Certification ensures that you are knowledgeable about milk testing procedures, which helps maintain high milk quality. This can lead to better health for your goats and increased consumer trust.
2. Improved Herd Management Understanding the components of goat milk, such as fat, protein, and somatic cell counts, allows you to make informed decisions about herd management, nutrition, and breeding.
3. Increased Production With accurate testing, you can optimize milk production and track your herds production leading to better breeding selections and who you keep in your herd.
1. Quality Assurance - Certification ensures that you are knowledgeable about milk testing procedures, which helps maintain high milk quality. This can lead to better health for your goats and increased consumer trust.
2. Improved Herd Management Understanding the components of goat milk, such as fat, protein, and somatic cell counts, allows you to make informed decisions about herd management, nutrition, and breeding.
3. Increased Production With accurate testing, you can optimize milk production and track your herds production leading to better breeding selections and who you keep in your herd.
How to get started with Milk Testing
- Choose a Lab. We recently switched to Langston DHIA. Email is [email protected] Click here for ADGA's List of Labs
- Choose a test plan. Starting out I recommend signing up for Owner Sampler -40. You will do your monthly testing yourself with one verification test per year done by someone else.
- Get certified to become a tester / receive a herd code. Email Langston for information and they will send you test and materials for testing.
- Sign up with ADGA. Click Here look under performance programs.
- Purchase a milk scale. Here is what we use. Click Here for Scale
- Mail your scale in to Langston to be Certified. Cost is around $15. They will certify it put a sticker on it and send it back to you. You must do this yearly.
- Once you are certified they will send you your paperwork and vials.
- You will receive your first barn sheets in the mail for your first test only they will be blank. You will need to list all your does with registration numbers and the date they freshened for your first test. After that first test they will come pre-filled and you just fill in milk weights.
- You must recertify every three years.
Thats it! Sounds easy enough right?? Happy Milking.... Get started towards your goals.
Johnson family Farmstead certification dates.
Feb 2023
Milk Test Information- Goat Gab Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/goat-gab/id1534172673?i=1000597553327
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/goat-gab/id1534172673?i=1000597553327