Meet the Sheep Behind Your Local Cheese

The Whispering Pines flock consists of mostly East Friesian sheep, a dairy breed that originated in Holland and Germany. White-faced and white-fleeced, East Friesians are prized for their long milking season—more than 200 days—and high milk volume. Tunis sheep comprise the remainder of the flock; while they’re not a traditional dairy breed Debbie is exploring the possibilities of crossing them with the East Friesians to increase production. 

My first visit to the farm takes place in late May, during the tail end of lambing season. As we tour the facilities, Debbie explains her breeding program to me. The gestation period for sheep is about five months, so she breeds her ewes in late fall for spring lambing. That way she can avoid having lambs on the ground during January and February when cold, wet conditions can mean a quick death from exposure for a newborn. And just like vegetable farmers plan succession plantings of the same crop to guarantee a continuous harvest, Debbie staggers her lambing to extend her milking season from mid-March through mid-October. 

Like most dairy farmers, Debbie takes about three-quarters of her lambs off the ewes a week or two after they're born and bottle feeds them. Even though it’s more work than letting their mothers do the job, the practice offers several benefits. Bottle feeding makes it easier to ensure that the lambs are getting enough milk and are in good health, and they’re easier to work with as adults since they’ve been handled regularly. Removing the lambs also contributes to better udder health for the ewes and fewer cases of mastitis, a painful and sometimes life-threatening infection that occurs when the udder isn’t drained entirely and the milk ducts become plugged.  

I witness first hand just how friendly the bottle babies are when Debbie ushers me into a small paddock and introduces me to several yearling lambs. The average sheep is rather standoffish and wary of people. But these lambs—Zorro, Daisy, Madi, and Hope—immediately crowd around Debbie, nibbling on her clothes and fingers. The bond between shepherd and flock is on display as Debbie crouches down and embraces the lambs, scratching their heads and petting their fluffy backs. “I’m kind of crazy about my babies,” she says, and it seems that the feeling is mutual. 

As much as she loves her sheep, Debbie’s plans for growing her cheesemaking business require some difficult flock management decisions. She wants to have 20 “super milkers,” ewes that give more milk with higher protein and fat content. Super milkers also have larger teats and orifices that make them easier to milk. Debbie has to cull her flock heavily and breed selectively for these traits in order to achieve this goal.  Complicating this endeavor is the fact that sometimes it takes several years to identify a true super milker; the high milk volume of a first-year freshener isn’t always indicative of future production. The ewes that make the cut are the ones that demonstrate consistent quantity and quality over several years. Out of the 15 ewes she milked in 2016, only six were super milkers, but that number should increase each year. 

Milking is a time-consuming endeavor, so Debbie’s husband Alan called on his engineering expertise to design and build a special hydraulic lift for the milking room. The platform fits up to five sheep at a time and can be raised several feet off the ground once the animals are secured on board. This arrangement makes the milking process less of a physical strain on Debbie, who once suffered a serious neck injury in a car accident: The hydraulic lift saves her from having to bend over to attach the vacuum tubes of the milking machine to the ewes’ udders. 

Debbie milks the sheep at 7 am and 5 pm daily. She also milks a herd of dairy goats—mostly Saanens, with some Nubians and Nigerians mixed in—and it takes between two and three hours to milk all her animals. After milking, the sheep and goats are turned back out into their pastures and their milk heads to the licensed Grade A dairy room to be transformed into yogurt, kefir, or cheese. 

While Debbie occasionally sells raw sheep’s milk, the majority of her supply goes into the creation of value-added products. One gallon of sheep’s milk yields one to three pounds of cheese—a better return than either cow’s or goat’s milk due to the high levels of fat and milk solids in sheep’s milk. Even though the daily milking routine comes to an end in October, Debbie makes soft cheese during the off-season with frozen milk in order to have some sheep’s milk products on hand year-round.
 
Soft cheese is by far Debbie’s most popular product—in 2016 she sold over 400 pounds of feta. She also makes a soft sheep’s milk cheese, comparable to chèvre, that she sells plain and flavored. Rosemary, blueberries and figs grown on the farm all make their way into the soft cheese at different points during the season, with new flavor combinations emerging each year. Another notable product is Debbie's whey-based ricotta. Most of the ricotta sold in the United States is made from whole milk, but historically ricotta was made with the whey left over from mozzarella cheese production. Debbie hearkens back to this frugal tradition by using what is now considered a waste product to create creamy ricotta crumbles. 

Debbie's repertoire also features a variety of hard cheeses including manchego and pecorino, both traditionally made with sheep's milk and aged at least 30 days for a firm texture and buttery flavor. Asiago, colby, pepperjack and farmhouse cheddar also show up in the on-farm store from time to time, testaments to the versatility of sheep's milk. Prior to visiting Whispering Pines, my experience with sheep’s milk cheese was limited to using imported pecorino in recipes from time to time. Debbie’s pecorino was comparable to the product I’ve used in the past, with the added benefit of being local. But the richness of the sheep’s milk stands out the most in Debbie’s soft cheese and yogurt. The latter is reminiscent of Greek yogurt, thick and tangy, and was perfect as the marinade for my favorite curried lamb stew.

Debbie's been raising sheep and making cheese for years, but it's only recently that she's been ready to share her products and experience with a wider audience. Now Whispering Pines features a store where visitors can purchase fresh sheep's milk dairy products as well as scarves and blankets made with wool from the dairy flock and dyed with South Carolina-grown indigo. The farm made its first appearance on the CFSA Upstate Farm Tour in 2016, and Debbie is planning on participating again this year. She also helps aspiring dairy sheep owners across the Southeast obtain breeding stock and set up their facilities, and has even worked with farmers to troubleshoot lambing or milking issues via FaceTime videos.