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

problems in the curd formation. Since the producer selling milk has no control on when the
cheese maker is going to use the milk (it could be immediately after sale or it could be several
months after the sale of milk), he should be prepared to preserve the quality of milk over a long
period of frozen storage (over 3 months). It is recommended that:
- Milk be chilled down to 4-6 degrees Celsius before freezing
- Milk be frozen quickly at low temperature (-25 degree Celsius)
Freezing milk quickly at low temperature requires that the milk be placed in a container with
the greatest possible exposed surface such as a flat square plastic bag (FDA approved). The bags
can be placed on a shelf in a commercial walk-in freezer. This type of freezing would guarantee a
high milk quality for up to 1 year of storage. It is possible that a producer finds the expenses of a
walk-in freezer too high or that a cheese maker does not want milk in bags. In this case a clear
understanding between producer and cheese maker should be established on the length of storage
after freezing or after the sale of milk.
Conclusion
This papaer describes in detail several milking systems with the amount of ewes a person can
milk per hour. It contains important information because the choice of a system depends greatly
on the number of ewes that a producer plans to milk and whether he is milking alone or with
some help.The greater the number of ewes, the more efficient the system has to be so that the
producer does not spend all day in the milking parlor. Of course, the overall cost of the system is
a determinant factor and often a producer will have to make a compromise between efficiency
and cost. However, by decreasing the efficiency of the operation, the producer might never
achieve the goals set before hand, leading to poorer financial results than expected.
The choice of the milking system has to be a realistic compromise between efficiency and
cost. No compromise can be made on the quality of the milking equipment (pulsator, regulator,
clusters, liners…). Only equipment specifically designed to milk sheep should be used in order to
have as complete evacuation of the udder as possible without causing trauma to the udder.
References
Billon P.. 1998. Milking parlors and milking machines for dairy ewes. In: Proceedings of the 4 th
Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposium, Spooner, Wisconsin, June 26-27,1998
Bosc J.. 1974. Organisation et productivité du travail de la traite des brebis laitières. Importance du
choix d’une méthode de traite. In: Proceedings of the first Symposium of milking machines for
small ruminants. Millau. France. 231-250.
Chambre d’Agriculture. Septembre 2000. Groupe des EDE Midi-Pyrénées, Languedoc-Roussillon.
Chaumont L.. 1998. L’installation de traite pour brebis 27 p.
Delmas Ch. and C. Poussou. 1984. Une nouvelle installation de traite pour les petits troupeaux
de brebis. In: Proceedings of the 3 rd Symposium of milking machines for small ruminants.
Valladolid. Spain. 326-345.
Le Du J., J.F. Combaud, P. Lambion and Y. Dano. 1984. Etude de la productivité en salle de
traite pour brebis: incidence du trayeur, de la race et de la taille de l’installation. In: Proceedings
of the 3 rd Symposium of milking machines for small ruminants. Valladolid. Spain. 303-
325.