This is the second season milking our East Friesian dairy sheep. We are getting a little more than 1/2 gallon of milk a day from two ewes. Whatever we don't immediately use, we freeze, or make yogurt, ice cream or "farm cheese" (basically curding milk with vinegar). Still haven't tried to make proper cheese with the milk yet but looking forward to it. We also use some of the milk to make soap.
Last season, we kept the dairy sheep in with the main flock we raise for lamb meat. I would move the milking stanchion and equipment along as we rotated the sheep through the pastures. It turned out to be more work than it was worth keeping all the sheep together. This season we created a static 5 paddock system just for the dairy sheep close to the house. Now it's a short walk to milk in the morning and to separate the lambs at night.
Here is a note from last year showing how we moved the milking operation with the main flock.
Moving the sheep water trough, milking stanchion and shade shelter all at once to the next paddock.
I've been wanting to make a skid for the sheep water trough so I can move everything at once when switching paddocks and also avoid having to empty/refill the trough with each move.
I finally had a good reason to figure out a solution when we decided we wanted to have a mobile milking stanchion as well.
I was able use the sled I built for collecting maple sap over the winter as the skid for the water trough.
Then I mounted the milk stanchion (built with leftover materials from other projects) in the suscovich style chicken tractor I built back in 2018 that wasn't really being used much.
Everything can can now be pulled together as one train from paddock to paddock saving me tons of time. The same is true for being able to milk the dairy sheep out in the field each day rather than walk them all the way to wherever the stanchion was.
Produce no waste, a big permaculture principle being implemented here. First of all the shade shelter is built from a repurposed tarp shelter after it was destroyed in a wind storm. The sap collection sled now has a purpose outside of winter and was built with what was laying around as was the milking stanchion. The chicken tractor wasn't being utilized either. Now we are taking full advantage of the stuff we built (and much of it with trash).
#permaculture #permies #homesteading #grownostr #selfsovereignty #rotationalgrazing #rawmilk #dairysheep #sheep #sheepmilk #hairsheep #katahdin #producenowaste #regenag #regenerativeagriculture #localfood
nevent1q…82j6
#permaculture #permies #homesteading #meshtadel #grownosr #rawmilk #dairysheep
quotingPhase one of the east fresian dairy sheep milking parlor complete
nevent1q…wv7u
Last season, we moved the dairy sheep along with the hair sheep using a mobile milking stanchion. It worked well but this year we decided to try a static paddock system for just the dairy sheep close to the house to save time. This shelter will act as a milking parlor and as stall to separate the lambs from the ewes at night. I still have to build the stall and add gates. Looking forward to having a flow of fresh milk again. We didn't freeze nearly enough and have been buying milk over the winter.
#permies #permaculture #homesteading #meshtadel #rawmilk #sheepmilk #dairysheep #rotationalgrazing
nevent1q…t2rk