East Friesian Vs Dorset/Hampshire/Suffolk

A regular reader, and Canadian friend of mine asked me recently what the differences were between the sheep we currently had and the new ones we had just purchased. This is an excellent question, and seems to follow many of the ones we get from locals - Why can't you just milk the sheep you have?

It's true that we could. The Dorset is a good all-round sheep. It has a decent carcass for meat, its wool is clean and produces a good fiber diameter, and it is an above average milker and breeder (known for higher percentages of multiple births).

They also have a more docile aspect to their nature compared to the Hampshire and Suffolk sheep we have. So, while these attributes are fine under some circumstances (for an all-round operation) the Dorset is not stellar in one particular aspect - the aspect we need - milk production. On the other hand it does have one extremely attractive benefit - what is called the 'out-of-season' breeding characteristic. This means that it is not unusual to get 3 breeding cycles in 2 years instead of the traditional annual cycle.

East Friesian's on the other hand are the most highly productive dairy sheep (producing up to 700kg/1500lbs per lactation cycle which is up to 3 times greater than average sheep).

So, while we could indeed milk our Dorset's, the milk production with East Friesian's is much higher, and more milk means more cheese! Now, cross them with Dorset's and if you can breed into a ewe lamb both the East Friesian milk productivity and the Dorset's 'out-of-season' breeding characteristic you have a winner - a sheep that breeds more frequently and when it lactates is produces three times the normal milk supply. And that is exactly what we aim to do.

Its not all Brie and Crackers

We're extremely thankful to the Pacific Northwest Cheese Project for their article on up-and-coming cheese makers that featured Catesby Farms this week. I consider it to be the number one blog on cheesemaking and is always packed with fascinating and informative news. The article captured exactly what most people who look at this from the outside, or those looking to start cheesemaking, don't necessarily realize - that the cheesemaking itself is just the icing on the cake and that the steps required to get to that point are many, and riddled with both humor and frustration.

We were fortunate in that we went into this venture with our eyes wide open, knowing exactly what was involved and ultimately how much time and money it was going to cost us before we would be seeing our packaged product on store shelves.

Of course there is an easier way to do this - you simply buy the milk in large quantities and forego the entire livestock operation, but then you miss out on so much and ultimately have less control over your final product than you would imagine. What were the animals eating? Were they housed in a building that would stress them? Were they organically raised? By being able to control the entire process from animal birth to what they eat, you have total control over your final product, and that to us is critical.

This week is an important one. We not only have our engineers doing their site evaluation and preparation for our new lagoon, but this coming weekend we will be selling off a good number of our lambs and hopefully getting things ready for haying. Reducing the flock will enable us to better manage what we have, plus we need to undertake the next round of worming, etc and its easier to do 50 sheep than 135 of them!

The dam went in at the weekend. The creek that runs alongside the house (Morgan Creek) has a dam (Yoder Dam) that can be constructed and deconstructed seasonally that raises the water level about 4ft for irrigation. We have rights to pump water and irrigate our pasture which means we are able to get a second and third hay cutting on some of the fields.

Catesby Farms Web Site Launch

Over the next couple of weeks I will be working in my spare time on the Catesby Farms Web Site that will be located at http://www.catesbyfarms.com. At present it only has an advert for the puppies but eventually its first incarnation will include sections on the farm, projects currently underway, our sheep, and early next year our cheesemaking.

I am hoping for it to also become something of a repository for sheep and cheesemaking (as it pertains to sheep milk). The blog will still exist, and as it does at present, include my own personal observations and perspective on the whole operation.

Pits, Puppies and Potatoes

One of the biggest issues with owning a livestock operation is manure and having a plan in place to effectively manage it. With the added complexity of a milking facility, an eventual cheesemaking room and the liquid waste water generated by all, having a method of collection and removal determines pretty much everything regarding how Catesby Farms is run.

As the farm was originally a dairy farm, a lot of what we need is already here, it just needs bringing back up to an operational level. The 'pit' is one of those things. It's a 10ft deep, 20ft x 20ft concrete hole that will collect all of our liquid waste and a small amount of solid waste, with the liquid waste being pumped off and spread as 'fertilizer' around the paddocks. Until this week the pit was full of 25 years of solid waste.

Environmental laws now in place mean things need to be done radically different to 25 years ago when the tank was built. Back then it didn't matter that the bottom wasn't concrete and that the pit wasn't sealed. Today it's the law. In the next few weeks the bottom will be concreted in and the tank fully sealed. After that we will either dig a secondary lagoon to pump liquid waste to (from the pit - and prior to spreading around the farm) or we will build another pit. This will take care of all of our waste water issues bar one - the need to connect the septic tank (the one without the drain field) to the pipe that drains into the pit. As the waste water from the septic will only contain wash water, we do not need the expensive septic system we had originally thought. Instead the cost of building it will go into the new pit. Swings and roundabouts really - but it gets us the ODA approval we need.

Once the manure management plan is in effect the Milk Barn construction can continue. The reality is that this solution will cause us the least aggravation.

On Friday we moved into the next phase of our operation regarding the sheep as well. Our 25 lambs and yearlings from Vermont Shephard arrived. We have decided to sell all but 3 of our lambs to slaughter (we will slaughter a couple for our own freezer, but the three we will keep are the little one we hand reared, and the two named by Jordanna and Zoe, my two girls - thankfully 2 of them are ewes so we should profit from them down the line). Of the ewes we will keep a dozen, which means that from mid June we will be down to 25 East Freisian ewes, 12 Dorset/Hampshire ewes and 3 cross-breed lambs - for a nice round 40. In February next year the 12 ewes and the 12 yearlings will lamb, adding approximately another 35 sheep (a far more managable number than the current 135.

The puppies continue to do well. All 4 are now very active and are looking to explore their new world. Both Othello and Gizmo are proving to be extremely good parents and it will be difficult to sell the puppies, although we have had interest already.

The last few days the weather has been wonderful and we have extended our vegetable garden yet again with corn, cabbages, carrots and lettuces. Both the strawberries and potatoes are doing extremely well (maybe it was adding some of the 'fertilizer' we dug out of the pit that did the trick).

Look how sweet we are. Don't you want to own us?

The puppies are 17 days old now, all have their eyes open and are starting to play with each other and interact with their world. Next week we will start getting ready to advertise them for sale. It's tempting to keep one but with 5 dogs already thats a bit too much for us to look after.