Dairy Sheep Symposium - the Department of Animal Sciences ...

The University of Western Australia Sheep milking research project aims at evaluating the
dairy potential of the Awassi and East Friesian sheep and their crosses with local breeds to
establish which cross has the best potential for dairy production.
The lack of typical Australian sheep milk products
The second problem faced by the Australian sheep milk industry is the fact that because
sheep milking is not a tradition in our country, we do not have typical Australian sheep milk
products. The majority of manufacturers entering the industry were aware of the importation of
sheep milk products from overseas for the local ethnic communities. Therefore, their first
attempts concentrated on imitating imported overseas cheeses such as the famous Pecorino and
Fetta. However, these cheeses are protected by tariffs and DOC trademarks, or suffer from
serious competition from cheap cow's milk imitations. Moreover, some of these cheeses (e.g. the
Pecorino) require long maturation times involving high storage costs and risk of spoilage during
storage.
These cheeses also have very strong flavours and they are imported and consumed within the
local ethnic communities who are used to their strong taste. Australian consumers, by contrast,
like milder products (e.g. Colby instead of matured Cheddar; Burton, 1990).
In overseas countries where milking sheep is an ancient tradition, most of the sheep milk
produced is transformed into cheese and some into yogurt (Bencini and Pulina, 1997). It is
probably for this reason that manufacturers entering the industry initially produced only cheese
and yogurt. However, novelty products, fresh products, and healthy and low fat products nowadays
also attract consumers.
We believe that a viable sheep milking industry could only be established by developing
typical Australian sheep milk products. These will eventually not only replace some of the
importations, but also will be exported similarly to Australian wines. Our research project aims
at developing new sheep milk dairy products including specialty cheeses, yogurt and ice cream
that should be acceptable to Australian consumers and to investigate potential markets for these
products.
Lambs
The third problem faced by the sheep milking industry is that of the disposal of lambs. If
lambs are left with their mothers the amount of milk they drink even with early weaning is such
that the whole operation becomes unprofitable. Many farmers have concluded that it is better to
kill the male lambs at birth and keep the females for replacement, either artificially feeding them
or by allowing their mothers to wean them. This solution has animal welfare implication and is
disliked by many farmers (T. Dennis, Pers. comm.). Moreover, sheep milking is relatively new
with consumers that are curious and occasionally reluctant to accept even the idea of milking a
sheep. It is possible that consumers could be turned off by the idea that newborn lambs are killed
to produce the milk. Some farmers attempted feeding the lambs artificially, similarly to what is
done in the dairy cattle industry. However, artificial feeding is extremely expensive and labour
intensive. Lambs tend to get sick and die, which increases dramatically the cost of the operation.
Overseas countries that have a tradition for milking sheep also have markets for young milkfed
lambs. For example in Italy, male milk-fed lambs are slaughtered at 4 weeks of age and 6-8
kg body weight. It is very common to see a whole lamb carcass sold in butcher shops fetching
prices of $25-35/kg. The females to be used for replacement are kept with their mothers for