Are you interested in learning to milk a sheep? Then you’ve come to the right place. The technique for milking sheep, or any other animal for that matter is quite simple. Anyone can learn to be proficient at it with a little bit of practice.
The actual process of milking a sheep just takes a little practice for both you and your ewes. Before you know it, you will good at it and your ewes will settle into the new routine. However, before we get to the actual techniques for milking, let’s discuss some ways to set yourself up for success.
Firstly, it is important to understand that milking an animal is a serious commitment
You have to commit to milking them every single day no matter what. Unless your sheep is nursing lambs, she needs to be milked every 12 hours until you get to late lactation. If you stop milking your ewe when you go away for the weekend, she will have ended her lactation by the time you return. Sheep dry off quite easily and missing even a couple milkings can drastically reduce their milk production. They do this for self-preservation’s sake. If they did not stop making milk when you failed to milk them, their udder would literally explode.
It is best to be consistent and milk them at the same time every day. If you milk your ewes at 7 AM and 7 PM, their body will learn the schedule and they will be waiting at the gate to get milked. It is also wise to set up your milking area in a space where it is quiet so the ewes will be relaxed and comfortable. Remember sheep do not like being alone, so they will likely be more comfortable being milked where they can see at least one other sheep.
Be prepared to start milking when your ewes lamb
Many people who are just getting started with a dairy animal are confused about when they can start milking. The easy answer is that you should begin milking high production animals as soon as their lambs are born. This way you will maximize their milk production.
Newborn lambs don’t eat very much, and a high production dairy animal will produce way more milk than the lambs can consume. If you don’t express all the milk early in her lactation, she will down regulate milk production so that her udder is not damaged by excess pressure.
For the first couple weeks, you can leave your lambs with the ewe full time. Allow them to nurse as often as they would like. Milk her out 2x a day to remove the extra milk that the lambs are not eating. Then, as the lambs start to consume more milk, you can switch to a 1x a day milking.
If both you and the ewe are new to milking, this is the perfect time to get everyone comfortable and experienced with milking. Take her and the lambs to the milk parlor and practice going through your entire milking routine. If you don’t get every last drop of milk out of her udder at this point, there is no concern. The lambs will help you empty the udder to maintain her milk production. By the time the lambs are old enough to wean, you both will have become proficient at milking.
Once the lambs get to be a couple weeks old, you have a few different options.
Many people like to lamb share. You can start lamb sharing when the lamb is 2 weeks old. This method allows you to only milk 1x a day while your lamb is still nursing.
When lamb sharing you will need to pen up the lambs so that they cannot nurse for 12 hours every day. At the end of the 12 hours, milk the ewe. Once you have milked the ewe, you return the lambs to her for the next 12 hours. There is no negative impact on the growth rate or well-being of the lambs to only nurse for 12 hours a day. Once you have weaned the lambs, you will need to switch to 2x a day milking schedule.
Alternatively, some people prefer to bypass the lamb sharing business and wean the lambs early. Lambs that are eating well, and starting to chew their cuds can safely be weaned at about 4 weeks old. If weaned onto a high-quality diet of hay and creep feed, they will continue to grow just as well as their un-weaned counterparts.
In this scenario, you would just leave the lambs with the ewe and milk out the excess milk for the first 4 weeks. After 4 weeks, wean the lambs and switch to 2x a day milking. It is also possible to do a combination of the two and lamb share until you early wean.
There is no right answer here. What works best for you will depend on your situation and facilities. On our farm, we have found that lamb sharing is stressful for all parties involved. So, we have chosen to avoid it and we wean our lambs at 4 weeks old.
A little trick we have learned….
If you wean your lambs at 4 weeks old, and start milking out their dam’s, you can tame your ewe lambs at this time. These lambs will be super friendly like bottle babies. This is ideal for ewes that you will be milking in the future.
Simply take a small amount of your fresh milk, put it in a bottle, and offer it to your newly weaned lambs after they have been away from mom all day. We have found that it’s like a drug and they will be fighting for it when they are newly weaned. You can do this 1x a day for a week or so, and by that time your ewe lambs will be extremely tame.
We think this is a much better alternative to raising actual bottle babies when they have a mother perfectly capable of raising them. You essentially get the best of both worlds. It doesn’t take much milk, or a huge time commitment like bottle raising lambs. You don’t have to purchase formula or deal with the issues like diarrhea associated with formula feeding. Plus, the lambs still get the opportunity to learn how to eat from mom.
Supplies you will need to acquire before lambing
You will need to do some preparatory work before lambing. You need to have your supplies and your milking parlor ready as soon as the first lamb arrives in order to reap the most successful milking benefits.
Your milking parlor set up can be as elaborate or simple as you want. Some things are optional, some are absolutely essential. If you are going to be milking inside, try to set up in an area that can be cleaned and sanitized easily.
Since sheep are short, it is handy to have a milk stand to elevate them off the ground to an easier to work height. This is not necessary though. You can also milk a sheep standing on the ground by sitting or squatting next to them. We actually do this a lot with experienced ewes. Rather than bringing them all the way up from a far pasture, we will often tie them to a post and milk them out in the field to save time.
You will at minimum need a leash and post along a fence or wall to tie the ewe to. If your ewe is new to being milked, you would likely benefit from a set of hobbles to keep her from kicking your hands. Hobbles are inexpensive and very handy to have around.
You will also need a containers to hold milk
It is best to have a smaller container to hold under the ewe during milking and a larger storage container with a filter over it to pour the milk into periodically. This way if your milk gets contaminated or spilled while milking you are only losing a small amount not all of it.
There are specialized containers you can buy for this purpose, or you can use more generic items. Our personal favorite is to use a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup. That way we have a reasonable sized container with a handle to hold. We then periodically dump this into a tea pitcher. The pitcher has a built in fine mesh filter designed to hold loose tea leaves.
Lastly, you need to invest in mastitis prevention.
In a dairy, mastitis prevention is probably the most important thing that you do. If there is one message that you take home today, it should be that mastitis is very real. You should do everything you can to prevent it.
You need to keep everything clean. This includes the environment your animals live in, the milking parlor, their udders, and your hands. Most importantly, you need a dip cup and a good quality, disinfecting pre and post dip.
Mastitis is caused by environmental bacteria getting inside the udder. Milk, and the inside of a healthy udder is sterile. However, milk is a perfect growth media for bacteria. If bacteria makes it up the teat canal, your ewe will get mastitis.
The reality is, that in any sheep flock (dairy or meat) mastitis is one of the top reasons that animals of prime reproductive age are culled.
High production dairy animals are particularly susceptible to mastitis due to their larger udders and teats.
Mastitis will result in lost milk production (often permanently), and possibly a lost animal. Some types of mastitis can kill a sheep overnight. Others cannot be cured, and once the animal has mastitis, they will be chronic carriers that can infect other ewes in your flock. If that isn’t reason enough to do everything you can to avoid mastitis, it is also very painful for your ewe.
While not absolutely required, investing in a strip cup and mastitis testing materials is a good idea. It is always a good idea to do a strip test to look for any clumps in the milk which typically indicates mastitis. Tests like the California mastitis test can help you to detect subclinical mastitis so that you can treat it.
Don’t put your animals at more risk than necessary.
Use an appropriate pre and post dip. They are not that expensive and are a very worthwhile investment.
There are many people on the internet not using any sort of udder disinfectants, or using ones that are likely ineffective. They claim that mastitis prevention isn’t important or necessary. Other people are using harsh chemicals of questionable efficacy like bleach that can burn or dry out the udders.
Don’t be like these people. Do yourself and your ewes a service and invest in a good quality dip that has been proven effectiveness. Get a pre and post dip designed and used by the commercial dairy industry. There has been a lot of research on this topic because preventing mastitis is of top concern in the dairy industry. They know what they are doing. If you will be milking your animals, it is what you should be doing as well.
Steps to milking a sheep
Step 1: Positioning for milking
First you need to bring your ewe to your milking parlor. Put her in the stanchion or tie her up. It is best to feed her while you are milking so that she is entertained. We feed our ewes their corn ration while we are milking. Put the hobbles on if you will be using them.
Step 2: Cleaning the udder and teats
Once the ewe is settled in, you need to clean her udder in preparation for milking. If it is very dirty, you should wash it with an udder wash, and then dry it. If her udder is already clean, go ahead and put the pre-dip on her teats.
It is best to use a liquid dip in a cup rather than a squirt bottle, as you may miss parts of the teat when spraying it. Once you have dipped the teats, use a clean paper towel to wipe off the pre-dip. Your goal here is to make sure that the udder is clean and disinfected. Also make sure your hands are clean and disinfected in preparation for the actual milking.
Step 3: The milking process–Bumping
Bump and massage the udder to get milk to let down.
If you have ever observed a lamb nursing, you know that they bash their heads into the udder before and during nursing. You need to replicate this behavior so that your ewe will let down milk.
After you have bumped on the udder you want to try to squeeze out some milk (we will tell you how in the next step). If no milk comes out, or it only trickles out, do some more bumping and massaging.
If you have an experienced ewe, very little effort may be required to accomplish milk letdown. If you and the ewe are new to this, you will need to work harder. Be patient and keep trying. It can also sometimes be helpful for milk letdown to have her lambs present.
Step 4: Expressing the milk
Squeeze out the milk.
Some people like to milk from behind, some from the side. Based on the shape of the sheep udders, our preference is to do this step from the side so that we are not inadvertently bending the teat. You can use whichever hand you are more comfortable with. We find that using the hand closest to the hind leg when you stand facing the rear of the sheep works best.
To get milk to come out, you what to make a circle of your thumb and pointer finger around the top of the teat. Push up into the udder a little bit and pinch your fingers together. Done correctly, you will see the teat bulge showing that it is full of milk.
Keep your thumb and pointer finger pinched, and squeeze your other fingers closed one by one to push the milk down and out the end of the teat. If you don’t keep the top pinched off enough, the milk will rush past your thumb and back into the udder rather than coming out the teat opening.
Done right you will get a big solid stream of milk. If you don’t try again. You may need to do some more bumping and massaging to get things started. Repeat this process until the udder is empty. As you are milking, try to avoid getting milk on the floor as it can grow bacteria that can then get splashed up onto the udder causing mastitis.
If you have a strip cup, squirt the first stream or two into the strip cup before milking into your container. If you see signs of mastitis (clumps in the milk), contact your vet to set up a treatment plan immediately. Don’t wait for it to get worse.
Here are a couple tips that will help the milking process to go smoothly.
First, if your sheep’s udder is very full, it is virtually impossible to empty one side completely while the other side is still full. To overcome this problem, we milk one side half out, then switch sides. Completely milk out side 2 and then return to finish milking out side one. This makes things go so much more quickly and smoothly for everyone.
Also, periodically bump and massage the udder while you are milking. Why? Doing this will help keep the milk flowing and will allow you to get all of the milk out. A lot of times the teats on sheep are not at the bottom of the udder, so you need to push the milk up and out of the bottom of the udder.
Lastly, it is important to get as much milk out as possible. Leaving too much milk in the udder can cause the ewe to dry off prematurely. This is one of the reasons that it is an excellent idea to lamb share while you are learning to milk. If you allow the lambs to nurse after you finish milking, they will finish emptying the udder while you are perfecting your skills.
Step 5: After milking cleansing processes
After you have completed milking, you want to do a post dip on your ewes teats. Make sure to thoroughly cover their teats with the post dip. Then you should allow your ewes to continue to stand there for a while, or you should take them out to graze. You do not want them to lay back down for a minimum of 20-30 minutes after milking. Ideally, they would go out on a clean pasture and not return to laying on a dirty barn floor for at least 2 hours.
The reason for this is that after milking, the teat canal needs time to close. While the teat canal is open, your ewe is highly susceptible to getting bacteria in her udder. Laying on a manure covered floor before her teat canals close is the perfect recipe for mastitis.
Some closure is achieved within 20-30 minutes of milking, but the teat canal is not fully closed for 2 hours. The reason you post dip is to kill all the bacteria on the teat post milking. Keeping her standing for 2 hours will prevent new bacteria from being introduced to her udder before the teat canal has closed. If you are returning the ewe to her lambs, you may do so once the post dip has dried.
Step 6: Caring for the fresh milk
Refrigerate or freeze your milk immediately. Strain it again before refrigeration if necessary. Warm milk will grow bacteria with alarming speed. If you are planning to use it raw, it is imperative that you get the milk as cool as possible as quickly as possible.
Next you should clean your milking parlor after you finish milking. This is good to do from both an animal health perspective, but also a human health perspective. Keeping your milking parlor clean will help keep your ewes from getting mastitis, and it will also help to keep you from getting sick from drinking their milk. Milk and manure spilled on the floor are perfect for creating a bacteria cesspool.
If you follow these steps, you should be set up for backyard dairy success. We wish you the best of luck as you start out in your sheep milking endeavor!
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