BestBaa Farm

About Our Sheep

Characteristics of British Milk Sheep

The British Milk Sheep is a medium-large, polled sheep with a whiteface and legs. It has added a new dimension to the sheep industry by producing large crops of lambs and rearing them on one ewe. High performance per ewe is the major factor affecting profitability. The combination of high prolificacy and high milk yield, in both the British Milk Sheep and it’s cross bred daughters enables high levels of production to be achieved without the problems of high capital investment in large numbers of ewes, and without the need to rear triplets artificially. The breed was developed in England in the 1970s by Lawrence Alderson. He achieved this outstanding breed by crossing exceptional animals from both prolific and milky breeds including Dorsets Blue faced Leicester, Lleyn and East Friesland.

The BMS is a prolific breed; the average crop from purebred ewes is 307% for mature ewes, 263% for two year olds and 221% for ewe lambs. The lambs tend to be of good weights: eight to ten pounds. Most ewes feed their lambs successfully. Another attribute of the BMS is their handleability. They are docile and friendly, so handling is easy. As dairy sheep, BMS milk well, producing 300-400 liters/lactation as mature ewes in 180 -210 days. The breeding season for BMS is also prolonged, resulting in of out of season breeding. The wool is semi-lustrous, and according to the British Wool Marketing Board it has “excellent wool properties, recommended."

With regard to lamb, the BMS is well muscled and lean. Lambs will grow to over 100lbs without putting on fat. These qualities make it an ideal animal for today's demand for larger animals. During the three years that we sold lambs through the OSMA Forward Contract, we were awarded the highest points in our class for carcase quality.

As we take good care of our animals we have gained an excellent reputation for the tenderness and fine flavour of our lamb (www.lambrecipes.ca).

Our flock

Our flock of pure British Milk sheep now number about 150 adult females (2006). To avoid inbreeding, we have imported semen from three different rams and use this semen on the purebred ewes. With the larger numbers we are able to select animals suitable for individual buyers. The first purebred BMS females were sold in 2006 to form the nucleus of another purebred flock.

Our sheep live up to the breed averages, raising triplets successfully. Our average is three lambs/ewe in season. The lambs grow well and produce good lean carcases of 50lbs or more. We find that 50% of our income is derived from lambs.

We have been milking our sheep now for six years. Thanks to our jars, we can follow the production of individual ewes on a daily basis. In 2006 most of our 4th lactation BMS ewes produced over 300 liters after weaning at 50 days. No doubt higher yields could have been achieved had we weaned sooner. Younger animals do produce less, and for ewe lambs, the lactation tends to be shorter.

As members of the Ewenity Dairy Cooperative, our milk is processed into a variety of yogourts and cheeses. We have also produced a few experimental batches of ice-cream.