Hello!
Today’s post is all about Friesian dairy sheep. The silly creature above sticking its tongue out at you belongs to this breed. I’ve spun some of their wool that I’d like to tell you about. But there is more to these sheep than wool. In fact, their wool is only a by-product. Their main job is producing milk – they aren’t called dairy sheep for nothing.
According to the breeders’ association the Friesian dairy sheep is the sheep breed with the highest milk yield in the world (!). It produces about 600 litres of milk during the 6 month lactation period every year. It is a rare breed that was almost extinct 40 years ago, but thanks to several enthusiastic breeders their numbers have grown to around 9000 registered pedigree sheep now.
What do they look like? You’ve already seen a cheeky one in the photo at the top. Here is more serious picture.
Wonderful sheep we had them in Fryslan when I grew up , now I want some in Australia
A message from Australia, how nice! I have some relatives in Australia who emigrated there from Friesland, too. Are any Australian sheep kept for their milk at all, I wonder, or just for their wool?