great lakes dairy sheep symposium - the Department of Animal ...

1.2. The average western Pyrenees dairy sheep farm
A small area with a large part of pasture:
- total farmland: 24.4 ha (60.3 acres)
- principal forage area: 23.1 ha (57.1 acres). 67 % with permanent grassland.
- For 74 % of the farms, the principal forage area is supplemented by 12 ha (29.7 acres)
of “ drift pasture ”.
- 80 % of the flocks are located in mountainous or hilly areas and 74 % use “collective
mountain pastures”.
A flock with local dairy sheep breed:
- size of the flock: 260 dairy ewes (Manech Black Face, Manech Red Face, or Basco-
Béarnaise)
- annual milk production: 27,000 liters
- milk production per ewe (all ewes present in the flock): 100 liters
- milk composition: fat content 71.7 g/l, protein content 53.5 g/l
- milk quality: SCC 858,000 cells/ml, bacterial count 82,900 germs/ml
- number of sold lambs: 195
- culling rate: about 20 %
A herd of 15 beef cows in association with the dairy sheep flock:
In 90 % of the farms, the dairy sheep flock is in association with another production:
- beef production: 75 % (with an average 15 cows of the breed “Blonde
d’Aquitaine”)
- dairy cow production: 11 % (with an average 17 dairy cows)
- horses: 24 %
A very busy family farm:
The farm is a “family unit” with in average 1.8 “man-work-year” and the average age of
the producer is 43 years old.
Nowadays, 40 % of the flocks are still hand-milked. When machine milking, the milking
parlour is a pit with 24 places and 12 milking units
20 % of the farmers make cheese on their farm.
1.3. The diversity of the systems
Beyond this average description, the systems are diverse. Four types of systems of
production are summarized in the Table 2.
The four systems mainly differ in the local breeds used, the size of the farm and the percentage
of farmstead cheese makers.
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