People often ask me how we get the colostrum for our cream. The question usually comes with a hint of concern—are the baby goats okay? Are we taking something they need? Is this actually sustainable, or just marketing dressed up as farm life?
These are fair questions, and they deserve honest answers.
What Colostrum Actually Is
Colostrum is the first milk a mammal produces after giving birth. It's different from regular milk in composition and purpose. Where mature milk provides ongoing nutrition, colostrum is designed for those critical first hours and days—delivering concentrated growth factors, immunoglobulins, and nutrients that help a newborn's systems come online.
For our goats, colostrum production happens in a brief window. Does produce it for roughly three to five days after kidding, with the highest concentration in the first 24 hours. After that, milk composition shifts to what we recognize as regular goat milk.
The Kids Come First—Always
Let me be absolutely clear: we never take colostrum that baby goats need. The health of our kids is non-negotiable, both because we genuinely care about our animals and because healthy kids become healthy goats that produce quality milk for years.
Here's how our process actually works. When a doe kids, we ensure the newborn receives colostrum directly from mom within the first few hours—this first feeding is crucial for the kid's immune development. Most does produce more colostrum than their kids can consume, especially if they've kidded a single rather than twins or triplets.
The surplus—and only the surplus—is what we harvest for skincare. In years where our does produce less, or when kids need more, we simply produce less Colostrum Cream. The animals' needs always take priority over production.
Harvesting with Care
Timing matters enormously for colostrum quality. The growth factors and immunoglobulins that make colostrum valuable are at their highest concentration in the first day after kidding. They begin declining almost immediately.
We milk our does within hours of confirming kids have nursed and are thriving. This colostrum is immediately chilled to slow the degradation of fragile proteins. Processing happens within a day or two—never the weeks or months that separate commercial colostrum powder from its source.
This rapid turnaround is one reason we'll never produce Colostrum Cream at scale. The logistics of preserving biological activity don't accommodate mass production. We work with what our herd provides, when they provide it, processed with the urgency that living ingredients demand.
Why Goat Colostrum Specifically
We're often asked why we use goat colostrum rather than bovine (cow) colostrum, which is more commonly available. Several reasons:
Goat milk proteins are structured differently than cow milk proteins, with smaller fat globules that may be easier for skin to absorb. The pH of goat milk is closer to human skin's natural pH. And, practically speaking, we're a goat farm—our expertise and infrastructure are built around goats.
We also love our goats. They're not abstract production units—they're animals with names and personalities that we see every day. This relationship translates into care that factory farms can't replicate. Animals that are well-treated produce better, healthier milk. It's that simple.
A Product You Can Trace
When you use our Colostrum Cream, you're using an ingredient that I can trace to specific goats on our Washington State farm. I can tell you their names, their lineages, what they were eating when they kidded. This level of traceability is rare in skincare, where most ingredients pass through multiple middlemen before reaching their final form.
This matters not just for quality, but for trust. You shouldn't have to take a company's word about their ingredients when that company has no idea where those ingredients actually came from. We know exactly where ours come from. We were there when they were produced.
