Dairy Sheep. Anyone have them

alsea1

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I have dairy goats. Now I am thinking seriously about getting a couple East Friesian/Lacoune cross lambs.
I am curious about what to expect as far as quantity of milk per sheep. Flavor as well.
 

TAH

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We milked our Kahtadin Dorper cross ewe. We only milked her once. She gave one cup. Her milk was pretty good. It was sweeter than goats milk.
 

purplequeenvt

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I have a 1/4 Friesian ewe (the other 3/4 are Border Leicester, Dorper, and Shetland). While I don't milk her for our consumption, she is a heavy milker and grows fat babies. I did milk her once right after she lambed (I needed colostrum) and she easily gave 12 oz.

My experience with dairy ewes (with the exception of this cross) was that they had lots of parasite issues.
 

mysunwolf

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We have some high percentage (>50%) East Friesian ewes, a high percentage ram, and some <50% crosses. I agree that the higher percentages are more vulnerable to parasites and other health issues like pneumonia in the lambs, difficulty lambing (from the multiple births especially), plus they grow slower than a meat sheep. Wool quality can vary as well. Lacaune is a great breed to have in there, but it's also important to know what they're crossed with (most dairy sheep in this country are not 100% anything so if they are telling you 50% EF 50% Lacaune be very very skeptical). Having Dorset, Border Leicester, and other hardier breeds crossed in helps a lot, but you have to make sure their milking quality hasn't decreased with these additions.

Milk wise I have only ever gotten a quart or so but that was with lambs sharing and I have not dedicatedly milked them yet. They are supposed to produce up to a gallon a day but I have only known true dairies to get close to this number (and they measure by weight rather than volume).

Sheep milk is AWESOME, very sweet and mild, about a million times better than goat milk.
 

norseofcourse

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I've also heard some of the 'official' dairy breeds like East Friesian are higher input, as far as care and feed. Don't know any personally, though.

I've milked my Icelandics, and will be starting again for the season soon. I'm still a novice at it, and I only separate the lambs at night, but milking 2 or 3 ewes gave me plenty of milk to use and experiment with recipes. Their milk is sweet and good tasting.
 
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