strong milk flavour

[jane]

Hi everyone

Our 4 year old Jersey had a calf 3 weeks ago. We have noticed in the last week or so that the milk has quite a strong flavour, to the point that milk that is 4 days old is too strong to drink. It doesn't taste sour just a very strong taste. It is summer here in Australia so there is no green grass just dried brown pasture. I am feeding her meadow hay and a mix of bran, Lucerne chaff and grain. This is the same feed that she has been fed for the last 3 years. There's no weeds in the paddock that would account for the taste. I've checked and rechecked that my bottles are clean etc, nothing different. I have noticed in the past with a previous Jersey that we owned that there was a stronger flavour in summer and undrinkable after a couple of days but that was when the cow had been lactating for 12 months, not long before we had to dry her off before calving.

We didn't have this problem last year, our current Jersey had her calf in October and the milk was fine over summer. I'm stumped! When I did a google search something came up about supplementing with dolomite as it can sweeten the milk, something about calcium. Has anyone ever heard of that before?

In spring the milk is always lovely and sweet as our Jersey is on green grass but now during summer with brown dried grass in the paddock, the milk even after milking is not sweet at all. It tastes like it's a few days old. Is there anything that I could try?? If only we could irrigate and have lush green grass all year round!!

Just wondering if anyone can shed any light on this. I've got milk coming out of my ears that is going to the chickens at the moment.

Thanks for any advice.

Jane

[Tamara]

I'm just going to list off a bunch of reasons I can think of...

Mastitis? Ketosis?

Is it possible since she's only been in milk for 3 weeks, the milk is just strong as it is still 'settling in', so to say?

Is her water source clean? If you have a stagnant trough or some icky thing got in the water, that could be the cause.

Do you thoroughly clean her udder before milking?

Is your fridge not cold enough?

Are you sure there is nothing at all unusual she could be eating in her paddock (also consider trees and bushes she could reach - my cows will even eat gumtrees when hungry). Have you checked the hay for weeds?

Apparently you can give her several vitamin E capsules and that can sweeten the milk. Just put them in her feed and she will eat them up.

[mandys]

Jane we also had this issue a few weeks ago and we went through every possibility. Our spring grasses here did make a bit of difference but it still didn't account for the horrid flavour we were getting- it wasn't a sour taste either but a horrid "barn taste". Eventually we finally nailed it and worked out that when we put the milk into a bucket into the fridge it wasn't getting cool enough quickly enough ( it was taking about 4-5 hours to get to 5degrees) so we invested in a cooling tank and within 30 minutes of it getting milked it is at 5degrees and since then we haven't had any issues at all of it tasting "strong"

I'm just sharing my story cause we also tried feed changes, water changes and nothing worked. Not sure if this would apply to your side though or if you are getting your milk cold enough quickly enough?

[elnini]

My thoughts would be water too, not quite enough as it is warmish, or evaporation is concentrating the minerals, or there is some growth of algae.

My next thought would be lack of vitamin A with no green pick. You could try an ADE supplement, hitting the vit E at the same time.

Short of irrigating, move to Tassie like I just did because I got tired of farming dust !

[wyomama]

90% of the time, strong cowy smelling milk can be cured by supplementing at least 1500 IU vit E per day. The dolomite seems to work, too - I'm not sure why.

The rest of the time, it's either a sanitation/contamination issue, or subclinical mastitis.

If your fridge is too warm and your cow is healthy, and your practices clean, your milk will usually start to smell sour, not cowy or like a barnyard.

[isabella]

I'm dealing with this problem now with my heifer that calved 12/01. But it is ketosis in her case. :-( Her milk smelled/tasted strong for a couple days but this morning it had a distinct acetone smell....

I hope you can figure yours out.

[rosalind]

Good suggestions. I've had success with the Vit E AND milk needs to be to 40 degrees F within 2 hours(sorry, might have to convert temp, not sure what measurement you use in AUS) - We found that using half gallon containers helps cool the milk quicker (more surface area) than gallon... That can help, too.

My third fail-proof policy for good tasting milk is a regular ACID rinse. Soaps are ALKALINE and so you need to alternate occasionally - for bacteria and for milk stone. What I do is spray everything with vinegar (I do homemade apple cider vinegar, much more pleasant than white...) about once a week. Let it set a few hours, then lukewarm rinse, then really hot rinse and let dry. If you have a lot of milk stone, might have to do that twice or more the first go-around. If you get into the habit of maintaining your equipment that way, you won't get buildup.

Oh, and as I tell my husband a lot - you can't "See" bacteria! Something that looks clean is often quite contaminated.

[jane]

Thanks for all the suggestions. We put our milk straight into the freezer to get it chilled quickly; and the water seems fine in the paddock. When I milked last night and this morning I tasted milk straight from each quarter. There's no off flavour, its not sweet at all and stronger than normal so I'm pretty sure it's not a contamination issue.

During all of this I made some cheeses and it's been very interesting! I made haloumi and it was really spongy. I also made a gouda and a soft cheese on the same day and when I turned the gouda in the hoop I thought it was getting bigger, thought I was imagining things. When I've looked at the gouda this morning (it's been nearly 24 hours since putting in the cheese hoops with weights on top) it is now risen so that the cheese is at the top of the hoop. My cream cheese looked the same like it was light and rising. I cut one of the cream cheeses in half and it looks spongy (like an aero bar) all bubbly. I've never had this happen before. I phoned cheeselinks and the lady said that she has received a number of calls about the same thing in the last couple of weeks. She said it could be yeast but there would be a smell to it (which there isn't) but most likely it is the fact that the cow is on dry feed at the moment.

I'll give the vitamin E and A a go and see what happens.

Thanks

Jane

[rosalind]

Did you test for ketones?

Sounds like it could be a feed issue, just because feed works at a certain time of year, the body of a cow changes and whether lactation, body condition, overall health... something could be enough different that what you're feeding right now is not enough.

Maybe try supplementing or finding some milk cow quality hay (more lucerne!) and really put the nutrients to her and see if that helps.

[jane]

okay, excuse my ignorance, but what are ketones? Is this another name for ketosis??

I am going to take a trip to the fodder store and get some Lucerne hay and other good quality happy.

Thanks

Jane

[Tamara]

The body produces ketones - a high level of ketones means she has ketosis. Hope that helps

[AnnB (NE)]

Anytime a cow breaks down body fat she releases ketones. While we can burn ketones for energy, the cow needs energy to process ketones. When the ketones build up, showing that she is not able to remove them herself, it's called Ketosis.
If the ketone level gets very high, the cow loses her appetite for the very foods she needs to process ketones.

Ann B

[jane]

Okay, I don't think that's the issue as she's eating all her food as usual.

[elnini]

Cassieoz has been having trouble with her cheese too, in her case not setting a curd. Last summer I had my cheese go bubbly and it turned out that dust was blowing into the milk as I was milking because it was so dry and miserable. I assumed it was a wild yeast, but when I started pasteurising the milk before making cheese that stopped the bubbling. So there may be a wild bacteria out there. The milk tasted fine, but was used within one or two days so may not have had time to develop a strong flavour.

I stopped the dust by covering the bucket with a disposable fabric hair net soaked in sanitiser and miling through that.

[isabella]

Dec 18, 2014 21:45:09 GMT -5 jane said:

Okay, I don't think that's the issue as she's eating all her food as usual.

They can be in ketosis and still eat and behave normal. In severe cases they loose their appetite but it would be good to check for it still. Regular ketone strips that you buy at the drug store for urine testing. My heifer with ketosis has not quit eating and behaves as normal as ever. Hope this helps.

[jane]

I'll check at the pharmacy tomorrow for some ketone strips. I hope they have them here in Oz, I've never heard of them before.

Thanks

[petal]

I'm in Aus, and have them, bought from local chemist, my jeresy currently has ketosis shes 4 weeks fresh, ive been treating her now for 3 weeks, I suspect it will be a long recovery, hope your girl does not have it:)

Sent from my SM-G900I using proboards

[wyomama]

While it's always good to have strips on hand, ketosis has a very distinctive "fingernail polish remover" or "rotting fruit" smell to the milk. The smell will be stronger in a bottle that's had the lid on for a few hours, because it off-gases, but it doesn't get worse as time goes by.

[Jenn]

Yeast is usually the culprit in bubbly milk. Sometimes the milk from the cow is yeasty, sometimes it contamination from the air...like in a kitchen where bread is made too.

Just an aside, it actually takes a long time to chill milk in the freezer. The part touching the glass can ice up before the core is chilled enough. Water bath cools significantly faster....and you don't risk breaking the jars with a water bath.

-Jenn

[jean]

Dec 18, 2014 16:36:41 GMT -5 rosalind said:

Good suggestions. I've had success with the Vit E AND milk needs to be to 40 degrees F within 2 hours(sorry, might have to convert temp, not sure what measurement you use in AUS) - We found that using half gallon containers helps cool the milk quicker (more surface area) than gallon... That can help, too.

40 F is 4.5 Celsius, which is what they use in Australia.