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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

You don't have to answer this rhetorical question, but how do two women who 
aren't sheep ranchers know so much about sheep?

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--- On Sat, 11/8/08, Marie McHarry <mmcharry AT gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Marie McHarry <mmcharry AT gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Another wood-fired oven production
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Saturday, November 8, 2008, 5:38 PM
> On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Lynda
> <lurine AT softcom.net> wrote:
> > There are several breeds of sheep that are either
> milking or multi-use.  The
> > ones that youngest is buying in the spring, St. Croix,
> are multi-purpose.
> >
> > In Sicily and parts of Italy, lots of the cheese is
> from sheep.  The best
> > mozzarella is sheep milk!
> 
> No, actually, it's from buffalo milk. I'm not sure
> how buffao ended up
> in Italy (not bison but, I'm guessing, water buffalo).
> There was once
> a dairy in Louisiana doing buffalo milk and mozzarella. Not
> sure if
> they're still there.
> >
> > The U.S. imports, are ya sitting down?, OVER
> 72,000,000 pounds of sheep
> > cheese a year!  Yup, 72 MILLION!  And that number is
> growing.  We only
> > produce a half million pounds.  So, anyone with the
> space and the right mind
> > set, could make some money!
> 
> Except that it's intense work and takes many hands to
> make a dairy
> sheep operation work. Sheep don't do well in industrial
> production, so
> that limits the possibilities.
> >
> > Now, last I checked (it's been a couple of years),
> cow milk was selling for
> > about $13/cwt.  Goat milk for about $27/cwt and sheep
> milk for $55.50/cwt.
> 
> I know for a fact that the goat milk numbers are about $10
> below the
> cost of production and were several years ago (probably
> much worse
> now). I can't even imagine what price would cover
> production of a
> 400/lb year ewe. Most people making sheep (or even goat)
> cheese are
> doing it for love. The only way to even break even is to do
> it all
> yourself from lamb to cheese. This is very hard work and
> not
> lucrative.
> >
> > The best milk producers are the Awassi and Sarda but
> we don't have them
> > here.
> 
> And likely won't ever because of scrapie. The USDA
> killed an entire
> dairy herd because they thought it might be contaminated.
> Our
> government isn't working with farmers on this one, but
> then none of
> them are big Agra.
> >
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