SHEEP-MILK CHEESE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 198, 31 December 1941, Page 3

SHEEP-MILK CHEESE

PRODUCTION IN BRITAIN District sheep farmers knew nothing yet. What would happen if sheep-milk cheese was itkulc here? Czechoslovak refugees are helping Britain to get cheese from sheep's milk. Tliej- have had experience of ewe milking in C/.ecliosolvakia, which used to export 2000 tons of ewes' milk cheese a year. The making of this novel cheese has become practicable by the invention of a new milking machine iust designed in Britain and, after experiments at the Northamptonshire Farm Institute, 400 ewes a da3 r are now being milked by it. The ewes are put in pens in units of six and milking is done at a pulsation speed of 100 a minute. During the milking the milk is nutomatical-y transferred to one of two -churns, either of which can be emptied without affecting the main vacuum, and power is supplied by a n-2 h.p., engine driving a rotary vacuum pump. British' farmers are now to be encouraged to milk their ewes, if only for a short period after weaning the lambs. In both buttcrfat and curd ewes' milk is nearly three times as rich as cows' milk and each ewe could provide' between lib and. 21b of curd a week for at least four months of the year. There are so many ewes in Britain that the people could, it is estimated, get as much cheese from them as they Eite before the war,' and- still leave some over for export.