Milking sheep moves north

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON and KINGSLEY FIELD

Sheep milk is about to flow on a King Country farm, a move which marks a further northward expansion of the mainly South Island-based sheep dairy industry.

Korakonui couple Mike MacGregor and Jan Cook are about to start lambing on their 40ha farm south-east of Te Awamutu.

They will then begin milking their flock of 400 East Friesian and poled Dorset ewes, in an eight-a-side herringbone dairy.

Their new Greco Milking Sheep business follows the pioneering moves of about 20 other sheep milking operations scattered throughout New Zealand.

The largest concentration is around Balclutha where about a dozen farms supply a factory producing feta cheese for export to Australia and the United States.

Neil Potter, chairman of the Sheep Dairy Association, is another of the rare North Island members of the sector. He is in his fifth season of sheep milking at Masterton.

Milk from his 450 head flock goes to Kapiti Cheese where it is made into feta and another cheese called Hipi Iti (small sheep). Kapiti has made sheep milk cheese for about 10 years, initially being supplied from an experimental flock at the Flock House research centre.

Sheep milking is essentially a cottage industry with its scattered practitioners producing niche products, Mr Potter said.

"Where to sell the milk is our biggest limiting factor."

Internationally sheep milking has a longer history than cow milking, and more ovines are milked than their larger bovine cousins. But some 70 per cent of milking sheep are in tiny flocks that are milked by hand.

When frustrated by the industry's rate of growth in New Zealand, Mr Potter said he is consoled by the knowledge that it took around 120 years for the country's cow milking industry to grow to its present size.

Mike MacGregor and Jan Cook were greeted with scepticism when they sought money to fund their venture.

"The banks didn't want to know. They said the risk was too high and the amount we wanted to borrow was too small," Mr MacGregor said.

The couple got the $150,000 they needed to purchase the flock, build the dairy and move a house on to their land from a private Waikato rural finance advisory business, Fraser Farm Finance.

Principal Don Fraser did not regard the risk as high. He says the money sought was no more than a normal house loan, "and if you look elsewhere round the world sheep milking is a very profitable idea."

Like Mr Potter, the King Country partners have built their milking platform intending to expand it. His has already been enlarged to 12-a-side. They could go to 16-a-side.

Mr MacGregor said milk would be chilled, and collected from the farm every three days, pasteurised, and bottled in two-litre containers for marketing through newly established New Zealand Sheep Milk Ltd.

"We aim to milk a thousand sheep by 2003, and have all the sheep housed in a large barn."

Jan Cook said by housing the sheep and feeding them cut pasture and supplement requirements, the couple would reap a double income from their property, using only about 8ha for the sheep and the remainder for grazing dairy heifers.

Mr Potter, who has recently toured sheep milking operations in Europe, said sheep were housed for up to eight months a year in France, and year-round in Spain.

There was a big capital cost to housing the sheep, but it meant they were fed better and not subjected to the ravages of the weather.

But it was essential for flocks to be sheltered in Europe and farmers there were envious that the practice was optional in New Zealand.

East Friesian sheep, renowned as the world's best milking sheep, were imported to New Zealand in the early 1980s.

One of the early breeders was Cambridge woman Tricia Rabarts. She has now sold her flock to focus on marketing the animals and their products as the North Island representative of NZ Sheep Milk.

"Sheep milk is almost a food rather than just a milk," she said.

"It has twice as much calcium, and twice as much vitamin B1, B2 and B3 as cow's or goat's milk.

"It's a mega-milk, absolutely packed with nutrition, and it doesn't seem to affect people with allergies to cow or goat milk."

The company was considering three different overseas marketing proposals, she said.

"I believe sheep milk products have a phenomenal future, not just for consumption in this country but also for a substantial export market."

Mike MacGregor and Jan Cook plan an open day at their farm on July 22. This will include milking demonstrations.