Is anyone milking Katahdin sheep?

We are hoping to bring sheep onto our land in the next year or so as a way to convert our steep hillsides into lamb meat.  While I don't have any immediate plans to do any milking, I'd be lying if I said the idea of making my own feta and other cheeses wasn't extremely appealing to me.

Based on my research, Katahdin are likely a good option for our climate, and they seem to be far and away the most common breed (with Dorper coming in on their heels) in the area if my Craigslist searching proves true.  I have found a couple of things online suggesting that they're OK for milking.  Has anyone ever actually milked them?

Here's a profile of a small USA farm that raises both meat and dairy animals, including dairy sheep. At the time of the writing, at least, they milked both East Friesians and Katahdin sheep, and had good things to say about the Katahdins. Sheep Dairy

They wouldn't be my first choice for a dairy sheep.  It's kind of like with chickens.  Egg layers can be eaten.  Meat breeds can lay eggs.  But egg layers usually have disappointing carcasses, and meat breeds lay far fewer eggs and often don't live as long.

If you don't want a lot of sheep milk, and you're OK with not getting any when they have lambs, it might be OK.  If you really want sheep milk get a breed that has much higher milk production.  Even if you get Katahdins that were selected for milk production they still won't produce the volume of a breed that's been a dairy type sheep for eons.

Andrew Mayflower wrote:They wouldn't be my first choice for a dairy sheep.  It's kind of like with chickens.  Egg layers can be eaten.  Meat breeds can lay eggs.  But egg layers usually have disappointing carcasses, and meat breeds lay far fewer eggs and often don't live as long.

If you don't want a lot of sheep milk, and you're OK with not getting any when they have lambs, it might be OK.  If you really want sheep milk get a breed that has much higher milk production.  Even if you get Katahdins that were selected for milk production they still won't produce the volume of a breed that's been a dairy type sheep for eons.

Thanks!  For clarification, the only actual reason I'd be keeping the sheep would be for meat and mowing, and maybe an experiment with milk.  Is the main issue the quantity of the milk more so than the quality?

Haven’t tried sheep milk, just know that Katahdins typically aren’t used for dairy as they produce enough for their lambs but usually not a whole lot more.  Quality is probably fine, just not enough quantity.

The article posted above by J Adams, when I read it, said they were introducing Katahdins because they wanted the shedding and year round breeding aspects.  But the intent was to mix them with a dairy breed to get the volume of milk up to something viable for farming.

i am not sure exactly what andrew will reply to your question.

I believe he is referring to how much milk you will receive. For the one goat i milk there is atleast 30 minutes per day of prep time. washing milking pails, preparing food for the milking stand, washing milk storage containers/strainers. along with everything else required to steward animals.

Over the winter my goat will give me 2 cups a day with once a day milking. most times it is 3 cups. If I spend all of the prep time required to milk the goat and i only received 1 cup of milk. I would seriously consider why am i milking this animal.

Based on andrew saying that while the lamb is suckling you will receive no milk. Means unless you sell/eat the young lamb, you will be missing the peak milk production for the sheep. Meaning the sheep might only produce 1 liter of milk at peak and it will drop down from that as time goes on. This will drop even more when the sheep has not been raised to be a milk producer. So the window of receiving milk might be small.

As far as i know sheep's milk window is rather short. Where as my goat can be in milk for years.

Anyways hopefully this is helpful to you.

This information is hugely useful.  Thanks!  If I get to a point where I'm seriously considering cheese or decide that all of my chores just don't take long enough, perhaps I'll look into picking up a couple of dairy specific ewes and learn to sheer.