Next week my sheep will come to live our their lives on our homestead. We’re getting two pregnant ewes who should deliver end of March.
These are East Friesian crosses bred for milking. Sheep’s milk is more nutritious than bovine (cow) or goat milk. It has more protein and, over all, more vitamins and minerals. It is reported to be more digestible than either cow or goat’s milk. With more dairy solids (yes the milk is actually thicker than cow or goat’s milk) it makes great yogurt and cheese.
Why dairy sheep?
Aside from the great attributes above, sheep are better multi purpose animals – dairy, meat and fiber. Sheep are much smaller than cows so we can have a few grazing on our pasture whereas one cow is all we could manage. I read somewhere that you can have 5 sheep for every 1 cow in terms of pasture needs.
Sheep are a bit better foragers on pasture (more efficient) than cows so that means less hay purchased (or grown). And since we have pasture, not brush, sheep are a better choice than goats. We will mob graze to improve the pasture.
Finally, sheep manure is a cold manure so we can get more organic boost into our soil with little to no composting. (The sheep will be housed in our barn at night so I’ll have plenty of manure to collect and compost.)
But the fundamental reason to add a sheep is that we wanted a dairy/meat source to add to our sufficiency on our homestead. With veggies, starchy tubers, fruit, grain, dairy, eggs and meat, we’ve got the bases covered.
And… they are just so cute!