Help me learn...

[mysunwolf]

Welcome to BYH! I've only had sheep for 2 years and only milked them for a few months, so take everything I say with a grain of salt!

Since I don't really like goats, they were not much of an option for me. However, they honestly have very very similar care and needs to sheep. When we had both goats and sheep, we would separate the goats every now and then and feed them a high copper mineral mixed in with some feed, and that was the only difference in care. Same vaccines and wormers, just different doses. We went ahead and fenced our property as if keeping goats in. The Katahdin sheep tend to browse almost as much as a goat (and this is true of many breeds of sheep). Goats also will eat fairly large quantities of grass when browse isn't available, so there is quite a bit of overlap. Shearing is a big difference, unless you have hair sheep.

Milking my Katahdins has been a great experience, especially the very friendly ones, and I'd definitely recommend it! This year we'll be milking dairy cross sheep and seeing if our results are any different and how much more milk we get.

 

[mb4herds]

Welcome to BYH! Congrats on your homestead, and that's such a great offer your friends have made.

I don't have goats, so I can't compare the two, but I love my sheep, I've had them nearly 3 years now. I've milked them the last two summers (the first summer more as a learning experiment, last summer more seriously). I leave the lambs with them, separating them overnight, milking in the morning, then back together all day. I didn't get tons of milk like goats give, but it's good milk and I got plenty to make things like soap, fudge and some cheese, among other things.

I posted about my experiences in the Milking forum, covering both summers:
http://www.backyardherds.com/threads/sheep-milking-milking-process-pics.29259/
There's other people who have also posted about milking sheep, too.

What part of the country are you in?

Nebraska/kansas border