Why sheep and not cows

[elkato]

I have recently invested in a herd of sheep 40 registered purebred friesian, I also bought a used low line 12 sheep/6 units milking machine, I just took over some family land where I am planting grass, alfalfa, oats ,and corn.
My  plan is to make a small artisan creamery and produce aged hard/semi hard cheeses.
For 2012 only half the herd will be lambing because the others where too young this breeding season, so the  amount of milk will be small
 
 I have began the great learning experience of making and ageing artisan cheeses (Manchego, Gouda, Tomme) with great attention to detail.
For some of the makes I have used organic cow milk from my neighbor's Holsteins and after two months of age I am sampling some of the cheeses, to my surprise the high percentage cow milk are just as good as the sheep milk, so this brings me to my question:
What makes us choose to milk sheep instead of cows? With the same investment I could have bought 10 jersey cows and produce 40,000 liters a year instead of 10,000 Lt (4000 Lt per cow vs. 250 Lt per ewe for 40animals)  as much as I like my sheep these numbers,( which I believe are conservative in both cases) don't add up so good in favor of the sheep. of course what I will provably do is just to buy cow milk and be able to make more cheese. but I was wondering if any one has had this question roaming in their head

[Gürkan Yeniçeri]

I am guessing that the quality of the sheep milk is (dry content, aroma, existing lipase, fat levels etc) different than the cow's. Yes it is a harder business to be in but the cheeses no doubt will be unique artisanal cheeses, as sheep's milk products not widely available as cow's milk ones in the market.
The points to consider are:
There are particular cheeses that can only be made with sheep's milk.
An aged sheep's milk cheese will be much different than the cow's milk cheese of the same type.
Sheeps give less milk than a cow but higher quality. The yield is easily 15% and with your feeding scheme, it would even be higher.
It is not just quantity but also the quality. You can charge higher prices for your artisanal sheep's milk products.
If you start with sheep's milk, your recipes will evolve with your milk and if you change the milk in the middle to cow's, recipes won't work and need alteration.
You should factor the higher yield and higher prices of the sheep's milk products to your calculations. Not just 40K versus 10K Litres.

The most important thing is how much satisfaction you will get when you are making cheeses with your own sheep's milk or bought cow's milk?

[linuxboy]

How are you getting 250 liters per lactation? You should be doing about 300 liters ave/ewe across the herd. Feeding the lambs or is that total? Are they younger?

For me, it is about loving the animals. I just don't like hanging around cows.

[Megan]

Sheep milk cheeses have a very unique niche in the market.  I love the earthy flavor of sheep milk, my cattle's milk here tended toward the bitter side, I liked it actually, but my family preferred milk high in lactose and solids.    Sheep are smart, my leader ewe will crack the pond for a drink, dig through snow to eat, love the feed conversion rate.   If I loose a sheep it's less of a loss than a cow.  I also found the hard way , sheep are more resistant to cr@ppy help.  My family has a lot of lactose intolerance, sheep's milk is easily digestable.  Equipment is less of an investment.  Much easier on the fence lines!  A ram is easier to deal with than a bull, or an AI tank.  I am biased though.

[eric1]

I think you have to factor in that you probably paid "specialty prices" for dairy sheep.  I don't think "normal" prices would give you a cow for the price of just 4 sheep.  I'd put a normal trade-off more like 7 sheep to one cow, which would about cut your difference in half.

And then sheep multiply a lot faster than cattle.  It's possible to average more than double as many offspring per mature female with sheep as cattle, and the time from ewe lamb to lambing (age to breeding + length of pregnancy) is much less than then time from heifer calf to calving.  So your initial investment in your ewes has the potential to catch up to your would-have-been investment in cows pretty quickly.

And as Megan said, feed conversion is important to consider.  Over the long term your maintenance costs per gallon are going to completely overshadow your investment costs per gallon.  I kept sheep (although not dairy type) for a couple years on winter pastures that would have starved a comparable dry cow to death, yet I didn't even see reduced returns with the sheep.  Some breeds of sheep are incredibly efficient at pasture utilization.  Even my dairy goats are worlds easier to feed through the poorer pasture seasons than my Jerseys.

Finally, if you're thinking of making cheese, I can't say from experience but I've read that the yield of cheese per gallon of milk is much higher with sheep even than with high component dairy breeds of cattle.  Isn't that true?  If it is (and depending on the extent), half as many gallons of milk could theoretically still mean just as many pounds of cheese.

[elkato]

Thank you for your replies (Eric,Megan,LB Gurkan)
I think that I am very happy with my sheep even if they were expensive  registered speciality breed, my buyers remorse maybe resulted from adding production numbers witch as you have pointed out were not very accurate. I posted the same question in the dairysheep group at yahoo and it styred quite a discussion, the consensus being that cows are more productive, but also more work and most of the people in the dairysheep group liked sheep better, I grew up in a farm where we kept some cows so I also like being around them, maybe in the future I might buy a few cows, but I don't know if the added work of keeping two species will outweight the benefit,(Consider Bartwell farms has goats and jersey cows for example)

[andrewpetersen]

I agree with you I also have 4 sheep's at my place and I am also very happy to have them though it is little costly to keep but more then that it has great advantage.

[Frotte La Tomme]

Your fat content is more than double with sheep.  Cows milk renders into cheese at 10%, as compared with sheep which can go up to 30%. 
So 10,000 liters will produce 1,000kg of cow milk and 3,000kg sheep cheese.  My two cents.

[mightyjesse]

You can make a lot more cheese by volume of milk with sheep milk than cow milk... Here's a break-down of the milks:

http://www.sheepmilk.biz/sheepmilk.html

I DREAM of owning a couple of dairy sheep.