There's more to farming sheep these days than just dipping, dagging and drenching, there's milking them too. Milking them for manufacture into some of the worlds finest cheese. Feta, ricotta, pecorino romano and the famous french roquefort cheeses are all made from the milk of the humble sheep.
Historically, written references to cow's cheese first began occurring 2,000 years ago, while references to sheep cheese date back 4,000 years.
Currently the most productive milking sheep in the world are the East Friesians, all having common european ancestry, the breed originates from two separate genetic lines; one Dutch and the other German. They have been around since 1530 in Germany and were acknowledged as an independent breed in 1936.
With long forward ears, polled head, and long face, the common Friesian is large framed, pink skinned with long white wool and a propensity for sunburn. The dark skinned and less common black Friesian is better equipped for the sun, and in parts of Europe the pure blacks and whites are crossbred into a variety of brocked specimens.
The long thin tail is free from wool and this is it's most distinctive physical feature, that, and it's very quiet temperament and docile nature having such close attention and contact with humans. The terms greedy and bossy have also been used to describe the Friesian ewe.
Brian Beuke maintains and breeds a flock of East Fresians crossed with Coopworths at his 580 hectare family property in the Neudorf Valley, Moutere. As we entered the holding paddock the entire flock gathered around us, coming right up to us for a nudge and a nibble. "It's a long term interest really, it was twenty years ago when quite a bit was done in Canterbury. I've always been keen on sheep farming and quite interested in the more intensive side of farming, and certainly at the moment looking for something that's potentially more profitable."
"We've bought a small number of pure breed East Friesians and we'll keep crossing until we're milking sheep that are close to pure breeds, but at the moment we're milking largely half crosses, some three quarters and a few seven-eighths."
"They're very quiet, sometimes quite lively actually, probably a little bit more like a goat."
They hope to be milking again around two hundred animals and while barely economic, they are milked for a full season. "We were getting roughly a litre a head per day, but there is room for big increases on that. The top ewes are producing two or three times what the bottom ones are doing."
Last year Mr Beuke constructed a purpose built milking facility for the growing flock, and delivered the modest amount of fresh sheep milk to Parkerfield Dairy in Motueka for processing.
Parkerfield Dairy's cheese maker Kate Light, has developed a hard eating cheese with a red finish and the consistency of cheddar called Mount Richmond Red. The Dairy also uses the sheep milk from another regional supplier, Roger Frazer of River Terrace Farm in the Wairau Valley.
"The cheeses are selling right around New Zealand, mainly out of restaurants" Mr Beuke said.
Internationally, the United States and Canada import more than 10 million kilos of sheep cheese a year, and yet sheep dairying is almost non existent. There are less than 100 dairies in the U.S. and less than 10 in Canada. Yet France alone has almost one million ewes in dairy production. They produce 90 million litres of sheep milk from 2,700 farmers, turning it into 7.5 million loafs of cheese.
Sheep's milk is naturally homogenised with smaller fat globules, and is therefore more easily digested, while being very rich in vitamins and minerals with up to twice as much calcium as cows milk. Introducing sheep milk to one's diet can benefit allergy sufferers by relieving conditions like eczema, asthma and dietary problems. As well as cheese, some yoghurt and ice cream is also made.
Brian Beuke feels that breaking into these markets all comes down to marketing, "getting from the stage where you haven't got enough cheese to sell, to where you have enough for an overseas order. It's the same problem that every industry has when it starts off, getting the production and the marketing done at the same time."
He adds that "It's not just straight out profitable, but also has the scope to improve. Because you are starting with sheep that haven't been bred up, you know that you are going to keep on making improvements."
A recent report by a New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture consultant indicated that the introduction of East Friesian genetics into the New Zealand flock could increase net sheep farming profits by 70%.
