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

Lambs
The problem of weaning lambs when their mothers are milked in a dairy situation is extremely
serious for the industry. Artificial feeding is expensive, but if lambs are weaned by their
mothers, they drink so much milk that the whole operation becomes unprofitable. So far, the
solution adopted by many farmers has been to kill the lambs at birth. However, this is an undesirable
outcome for animal welfare reasons and because many producers dislike this practice (T.
Dennis, Pers. comm.).
We investigated methods of weaning the lambs and markets for milk-fed lambs to make them
a second source of profit for the sheep milking enterprise.
Our studies confirmed that the artificial feeding of lambs is too expensive to be contemplated
by a sheep milking enterprise. It was only through the generous intervention of our industry
partners, the YHH Holdings, that we managed to feed artificially our first group of lambs at a
cost of $60 per head. Subsequently we tested the share milking method, which has been reported
to be economically viable to rear lambs while milking sheep (Knight et al, 1993). We tested a
method in which the ewes were left with their lambs for one to two weeks. Then they were
milked regularly twice a day, but they were allowed to nurse their lambs during the day. Our
studies showed that share milking not only allows the production of both milk and lambs, but
also it results in greater production of milk and longer lactations than those observed in sheep
that were separated from their lambs at four weeks of age. We have also developed a very
efficient system to separate the lambs from the ewes, by using a selective drafting gate that
allows only lambs to move through.
An honours students also investigated the meat production potential for milk-fed lambs. She
compared the carcase composition of lambs that were nursed by their mothers with that of lambs
whose mothers were shared milked until slaughter (at 15 kg body weight). This work showed
that although share milked lambs had slower growth rates than their counterparts, their carcases
did not differ in composition. Both groups of lambs were extremely lean, which could be used
by the industry to promote milk-fed lamb as a healthy product.
One of the requirements of our agreement with the RIRDC was that we conducted an economic
evaluation of sheep milking as part of our project. A collaboration with the Agricultural
Economics Group in our Faculty resulted in the development of the "Sheep dairying gross
margin calculator", a user friendly spread sheet that allows producers to calculate gross margins
for a sheep milking enterprise.
References
Anifantakis E.M. (1986). Comparison of the physico-chemical properties of ewe's and cow's
milk. In 'Proceedings of the International Dairy Federation Seminar on Production and Utilization
of Ewe's and Goat's Milk.' Athens, Greece, 23-25 September 1985. Bulletin of the International
Dairy Federation No 202/1986, 42-53.
Bencini R. and Dawe S. (1998). Sheep Milking. In The New Rural Industries - A Handbook for
farmers and Investors Published by The Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation
69-75.
Bencini R. and Pulina G. (1997). The quality of sheep milk. A review. Australian Journal of
Experimental Agriculture. 37, 485-504 .
Burton D. (1990). Say cheese! New Zealand Geographic 3, 88-106