The answer is simple.....sheep milk cheeses are my favorite. It would have been a lot easier to become a maker of cow or goat milk cheese, because there is way more milk available. There are very limited amounts of dairy sheep in the United States, yet quite common in other countries. Some of the most famous cheeses in the world are made with sheep milk: Roquefort, Feta, Manchego, Pecorino Romano just to name a few. They have many thousands of dairy sheep in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc. I live in California though, and when Bleating Heart began in 2009 there were only 4 licensed sheep dairies in the entire state. That's right, just FOUR. Initially, I was able to buy milk from one of those four dairies, and there were only 30 milking sheep in that flock. The other 3 dairies in CA couldn't spare a drop since they use all of their milk for their own cheese production. After my first season, my milk source became unavailable as she needed all of her milk to make her cheese going forward. So....what the heck, I started my own sheep dairy! Sheep give very little milk though, so if anyone out there wants to start a sheep dairy, please contact me because I always need more sheep milk.
The Flock
I was fortunate to begin my cheesemaking by buying milk from my friend and fellow cheesemaker Marcia Barinaga, who owns the Barinaga Ranch sheep dairy in Marshall, CA. Sheep milk is very hard to come by! Since Marcia needs every precious drop of her flock's milk for her own cheese production, she could no longer sell me the amount of milk I need to keep my cheese in production. So, I had a choice to make: (1) stop making sheep cheese, (2) move to Wisconsin where they have lots of sheep milk, or (3) buy my own sheep and become a shephardess-cheesemaker. I went with option #3. In December 2009 I purchased my starter flock from Swedish Mission Farm, a sheep dairy in Wisconsin and member farm of the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative. These ewes are specialized 50/50 crosses between the East Friesian and Lacaune dairy breeds which are common throughout Europe. East Friesian sheep originated in Germany and are considered to be the highest producing dairy breed by milk volume, while the French Lacaune sheep produce milk with slightly higher milk solids. The famous Roquefort blue cheese from France is made exclusively from the milk of Lacaune sheep. Each of my ewes has been bred to a Lacaune ram from the University of Wisconsin's Spooner Agricultural Reseach Station, the only university in the United States with a program dedicated to sheep dairying. These first 10 ewes lived happily in my backyard - which happens to be a 6 acre apple orchard - for 5 months where they all had their babies and had me as their faithful shepherdista until April 2010. By that time I'd formed a partnership with seasoned sheep ranchers Rex & Kerry Williams who live just 3 miles away on a 28 acre farm. After all the babies were born, we packed up the flock and moved them down the road. Work was already underway to renovate part of an old barn on Rex & Kerry's farm which became the milking parlor and in June 2010 the three of us formed an LLC, becoming Black Oaks Sheep, the 5th licensed sheep dairy in the state of California. All of the milk produced by Black Oaks Sheep Dairy is exclusively contracted to Bleating Heart Cheese, so in case you are wondering if you can buy sheep milk from the dairy, the answer is most definitely NO (sorrry, you'll just have to get your own sheep!). Each year we plan to increase the size of the flock at Black Oaks by keeping all of the ewe lambs and purchasing additional ewes. Eventually we'd like to be milking between 200-300 ewes.Meet the starter flock! My first 10 ewes with their names and birth year.... (and Whoopi above)
 Lucy ('07) |
 Roseanne ('07) |
 Ellen ('08) |
 Kathy ('08) |
 Cho ('08) |
 Gilda ('08) |
 Amy ('08) |
 Lily ('08) |
 Tina ('08) |