Milking sheep?
- Thread starter gta123
- Start date
Good point. The goat business has become too popular and prices have dropped a fair bit recently.
verdifish
Member
Sheeps milk is about £1.10/l wholesale at the moment
Growth in processed product sales is about 20% year on year
There are 2 main retailers and they are sensibly regulating the market to avoid a glut and ending up in the same position as cow dairy producers
(If you think a sheep won't kick off a milking unit you obviously haven't been around enough sheep!)
multi power
Member
- Location
- pembrokeshire
How much milk does a ewe have?
multi power
Member
- Location
- pembrokeshire
What costs are lower than with cows?
Per ewe everything will be lower costs but per litre I bet they are similar but saying that no need for slurry storage, cubicles the bedded area could also just be hardcore.
- Location
- Somerset
Kill them
Armstrong and miller
- Location
- Somerset
5 sheep can give the same yeild as one cow. If you lose a sheep its just a couple of litres drop in the tank and under £100 for the stock, a cow it would be around 10 times that hit with the cow being worth anything around £1000 and over 10 litres. Makes sense for small holders.
Some rear the lambs on mum , wean at 5 weeks and start milking the ewes, some rear on machines---I have yet to see anyone that kills the lambs at birth
How longs a piece of string---250 to 800l/lactation depending on if you are low input or high input 3 x day milking
Genetics play a large part
- Location
- Wales
What sheep breeds are the known high milk producers .... in the commercial milking sense ?
In 1979 we went on an ag. college visit to either Fullwood or Alfa Laval .... I can't recall which
.... and I was amazed by the amount of livestock that the firm catered for with commercial milking equipment. I seem to recall cows (obviously ), goats, sheep, pigs, bison, yaks, camels, lamas and my mind may be playing tricks with me, but I'm sure they said they were producing milking commercial milking units for some 29 different breeds of livestock back then. It was all very interesting because I'd not seen, nor given any thought to, other types of commercial milking livestock
In 1979 we went on an ag. college visit to either Fullwood or Alfa Laval .... I can't recall which
.... and I was amazed by the amount of livestock that the firm catered for with commercial milking equipment. I seem to recall cows (obviously ), goats, sheep, pigs, bison, yaks, camels, lamas and my mind may be playing tricks with me, but I'm sure they said they were producing milking commercial milking units for some 29 different breeds of livestock back then. It was all very interesting because I'd not seen, nor given any thought to, other types of commercial milking livestock I have