Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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Winter-confi nement lambing.
In this intensive system, lambing
occurs in January and February in lambing barns. Lambs are able to
nurse and self-feed in creep feeders, which allow the lambs free-choice
access to extra feed but prevent the ewes from getting at the self-feed-
ers. After weaning, usually around 2 months of age, the lambs are kept
on free-choice feed in fi nishing facilities until marketing time.
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Phase lambing.
Another highly intensive approach, phase lambing
seeks to have the ewes lamb only once a year, but the fl ock is broken
into three or four groups. This allows lambing throughout the year, so
of truly caring for the land that Karl and Jane had done. They wanted people who
would use grassfed production and draft animals.
Like the Norths, Maryrose and Donn milk 45 ewes (a mix of Dorset, Texel,
East Friesian, and Black Welsh bloodlines) that lamb in early May. They produce
cheese in an on-farm cheese plant and direct market their cheese and their
grassfed lambs.
The farmers' market in Ithaca, New York, with its cosmopolitan clientele
of people who can afford handcrafted cheeses, is still the main market for
Northland Dairy's production, but they are selling more in their own neighbor-
hood (about 35 miles east of Ithaca). They are also focusing more on direct
marketing their meat. The Norths sold about one-third of their lamb crop
directly, but the rest went to the commodity system. As Donn said, “With people
looking for grassfed meat, we are looking at our meat production as a stable
and important part of our business.” Though they still have some of the ethnic
customers whom the Norths depended on, their marketing strategy has created
greater demand and a broader customer base.
In an effort to reduce fossil fuel energy use, Donn and Maryrose have also
changed a few other aspects of the Northland system: today all cheese is aged
in a man-made cheese cave added onto the straw-bale house Donn built. The
cheese cave reduces the need for refrigeration.
I asked them if they have advice for others interested in artisan sheep cheese.
“We have found that what really works for us,” Maryrose said, “is to keep the
animals in very good to excellent body condition at all times. We really strive
to eliminate stress on the animals. That means we work at our pasture manage-
ment, in order to have top-quality feed and reduce parasite loads.”
