Lamb Sharing: How to Milk Your Sheep Once a Day (Without Being Tied Down)
Are you dreaming of adding a dairy animal to your homestead, but worried about the workload and being tied down? Grab your coffee and let's talk about how you can have your cake — er, milk — and drink it too.
I've had a dairy animal of some sort (cows, goats, sheep) for the last 12 years. In all that time, I've rarely been tied to a twice-a-day milking schedule. Let me show you how I get away with milking once per day — sometimes not even every day — with my sheep.
How to Milk Your Sheep Just Once a Day
I lamb share. Ta-dah! Were you expecting something more extravagant? It really is that simple. Ok, ok, there's a little more to it. Let's break it down.
How I Milk-Share with My Lambs
After my ewes lamb, I expect them to raise their lambs. That's their job, not mine, and they do a much better job at it than I ever could. Unless a ewe is an extremely high producer (read more about why I don't mind lower-production sheep), her lambs can pretty much handle her supply from day one.
Some ewes may need a little relief, and for those I'll milk once a day until their lambs are big enough to empty the udder themselves. Usually by one to two weeks old, those lambs have a voracious appetite and can consume a surprising amount of milk.
By day 20 after lambing, I begin separating the lambs at night. At this point they're nibbling on hay and grain and can survive a night away from mom and her udder. I milk the ewes in the morning, then everyone gets reunited and turned out to pasture for the rest of the day.
A note: I always separate lambs with a buddy. If they're a multiple, they have a built-in companion — but if a lamb is a single, I wait to separate until I have another lamb that can go with them.
The Nitty Gritty Details of Separating Lambs
Lambs are amazing escape artists with an impressive vertical jump. Make sure you have a tall, secure pen for overnight. If there's a hole or a way out, they will find it — trust me! They can jump surprisingly high and squeeze through a surprisingly small space.
Give the lambs fresh water, a little grain or creep feed, and some of your best hay. They won't eat much overnight, but it's still good to offer it.
As for where to keep mom, there are two schools of thought. Some people keep the lambs and dams close enough to see and sniff noses through the fence. Others keep them out of sight of each other entirely, claiming they settle down faster that way. My advice: keep them wherever you have the right space to do so.
For me, that means keeping my ewes in the barn or in an alley near the barn overnight so they're handy to the milk stand come morning.
How Much Milk Can I Take?
Take as much as you can get. Ewes (and does and cows) are shockingly good at holding milk back for their young.
How do I know? Two reasons:
I can see and feel milk held high up in the udder even after milking.
As soon as I let the lambs out, they nurse immediately — with milk and foam dripping from their mouths. If I'd gotten it all, that wouldn't happen!
Pros and Cons of Lamb Sharing
Let's start with the pros, because that's more fun.
Pros:
You aren't tied down — you can milk on your schedule and still have a life
The ewes raise the lambs, and the lambs grow healthy and strong
You only have to milk once per day
You're far less likely to burn out
Cons:
You'll get less milk than if you removed the lambs from the start and milked exclusively
You'll get less cream — mamas are very good at holding it back for their babies
You need a lamb-proof place to keep them overnight, and they are very good at escaping
It will be loud and chaotic. Lambs yelling, moms yelling. Just prepare yourself.
My Favorite Benefit of Lamb Sharing
When life gets busy or I want to go camping — I can. That's right, I can leave overnight without worrying about milking as long as the ewes are still with their lambs.
My family loves to camp in the summer, and lamb sharing makes that actually possible.
The other thing is this: you can usually find someone to come do basic chores — feed the animals, collect eggs, that sort of thing. But finding someone willing to milk, especially hand milk, is hard. With lamb sharing, you don't have to ask.
Expanding on the Cons
I listed them above, but a couple deserve a little more attention.
The one that gets to me most is the noise. I don't love the chaos. They do eventually settle down, but those first nights are loud.
Some creative people have come up with solutions. One I've seen is making a simple udder "bra" for ewes to wear at night — the lambs stay with mom but can't access the milk. People seem to have good success with this, and it's fairly easy to make, especially if you can sew to adjust the straps. The key is to keep it scrupulously clean between uses to prevent mastitis.
Another option is nose-weaning rings, though I think those are better suited to the weaning stage rather than daily use — putting them in and taking them out every day doesn't seem ideal.
The other con worth mentioning is limited cream. This doesn't really bother me, because I've learned to work with the seasons of milk. In spring, when cream is low, I focus on lower-fat cheeses like Parmesan-style or Alpine varieties. Later in summer, after the lambs are weaned, cream goes up dramatically — and that's when I stock up on butter, ice cream, and high-fat cheeses. Find your rhythm and it all starts to make sense.
FAQ’s:
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I like to wait at least 2 - 3 weeks before separating lambs.
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Yes it does - you just might have to alter it a bit. If your ewe is a high producer, you may have to milk her 1-2 times per day after lambing until the lambs can handle the milk or they are old enough to separate. If you can get plenty of milk without having to separate the lambs — even better!
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Yes it is! It may look slightly different but it is possible and I have done it with all three species. With my cows, I usually have to milk them once per day for about the first month. They hit peak lactation around 6 weeks after freshening then level off.
Lamb Sharing Is the Solution That Works for Us — Maybe for You Too
If you ask ten different shepherds how they manage their flock, you'll likely get ten different answers. There are many ways to do this, and this is simply what works for my family. If you're looking for more flexibility and a little breathing room in your homestead routine, lamb sharing might be worth trying.
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