The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: waterbuffalofarmer on February 04, 2017, 05:36:15 pm
-
Ok so I am not entirely sure where I should put this as this includes both sets of livestock..... I didn't want to hijack the thread about ewe colostrum so I decided to put up my own thread of this matter. I would like if I may tell you about my thoughts on this, as there is a lot of stuff being said why cows milk is bad to feed rearing lambs. I asked myself why this was indeed the case, why lambs don't thrive on cows milk, I think I have found the answer, I don't know why I never thought of this before..... Lambs thrive on goats and sheeps milk, also buffalo milk watered down a little, the reason being is because of milk types. The milk of a sheep/goat/buffalo is A2 whereas your typical cow will give an A1 milk, the latter being indigestible to humans. Here is what I am getting at if they can thrive on these 3 milk types could they not also thrive on a cows milk which was the A2 variety? If you look at the british version of the Guernsey the vast majority of them produce the A2 variety, whereas the American Version of the Guernsey virtually all produce A1. Could this work? Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter :)
Cheers
-
There's been some interesting research done recently on A2 milk being digestible for otherwise lactose intolerant humans and some herds are switching to all A2 cows.
-
I've reared lambs on Jersey milk, as have many other farmers. You may be right about the A2 thing - in which case, Shetland milk would probably work too.
The two things I found were that they need a lot more quantity of Jersey milk - half as much again as powdered ewes' milk - and they didn't seem to be able to switch back to ewe's milk. So I used to feed half Jersey and half ewes' milk until they were past the point of being adoptable, so their systems were used to both, in case a foster mum came along.