East Frisian milk sheep

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East Frisian milk sheep on an orchard meadow

The East Frisian milk sheep is a very adaptable and resilient sheep bred in East Frisia , which is especially suitable for small farms due to the breeding as a three-purpose breed . It is rather rare in larger stocks. There are three known colors: white, black and piebald. The white color is by far the most common. It is almost the only profitable way in the German dairy sheep farming and has now also in the German inland proven. The main areas of distribution in Germany are Saxony and Lower Saxony, where an estimated total of around 20,000 milk sheep of the East Frisian milk sheep and Lacaune breeds are kept, "a large part of them under organic farming conditions". The East Frisian milk sheep is one of the world's most common milk sheep breeds.

It is a large-framed sheep with a slightly ramsnose hornless head. The udder should be firmly attached to the front, back and sides and thus be suitable for suckling the lambs as well as for hand and machine milking. The floor of the udder should be at least three fingers wide above the hock. The performance characteristics of the East Frisian milk sheep are summarized with the famous "3 F": good growth, early maturity, fertility. At the age of six to seven months, the young sheep should have reached breeding maturity so that they can give birth to their first lambs at the age of one . During the first 12 weeks of life, the lambs should gain 300 to 400 grams per day. The average lambing rate is 200 percent per year, the meat yield is 40 kg (lamb) or 47 kg (old sheep).

The female East Frisian milk sheep can reach a live weight of around 70 to 100 kilograms. It provides around 4 to 5.5 kilograms of white, semi-fine, long wool and an average of 300 to 600 kilograms of milk per 240 to 300 days lactation with a fat content of 5 to 7% and a protein content of 4 to 6%. and 16 percent dry matter content, which is mainly used to make dairy foods, butter and cheese . From a nutritional point of view, sheep's milk is a very good addition to the human diet. Due to their high protein and fat content, people have access to highly digestible nutrients. Because dairy sheep are often kept on pasture and milked, the milk has a particularly high amount of conjugated linoleic acid and, compared to cow's milk, more short and medium-chain fatty acids.

Based on the EU Directive 2003/100 / EC on the "Establishment of minimum requirements for the establishment of programs for breeding sheep for resistance to transmissible spongiform encephalopathies" and the Animal Breeding Act that "the performance of animals is maintained and improved, taking animal health into account “It is mandatory that breeding animals are genotyped for their scratch resistance. Since certain genotypes are less susceptible to scrapie , this should preferably be used for breeding. An ear cartilage or blood sample is a quick and reliable method of genotyping.

Web links

Commons : Ostfriesisches Milchschaf  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Website of the Landesschaf- und Ziegenzuchtverband Mecklenburg-Vorpommern eV viewed on May 2, 2012
  2. ↑ Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute : Ecological sheep farming . Retrieved September 30, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c d Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute : 071 milk sheep . Retrieved September 29, 2015