Lambs and Mothers and Dairy
When lambs are born, their mothers - ewes - produce milk for them, and until the lambs are weaned. That is nature’s way. If the sheep’s owners want milk from the ewes to provide a product - milk, yogurt, or cheese - things can become rather different. There is human intervention and alteration to a natural course. At a chosen stage of ewe’s milk production, lambs are taken away from their mothers and their mother’s milk, and are fed on something else. An extreme system is that of a lamb being taken from its mother 24-48 hours after being born. There are those systems whereby a lamb can feed from its mother for a chosen, longer, period of time, and then be weaned from her milk so that milking can commence. Another system is for a lamb, after a short while of total nursing by their mother, to be with, and feed from, their mother for a portion of a 24-hour period. The lamb is not then with the mother for the remainder of the period, during which time the mother can be milked.
In ‘Guide to Raising Dairy Sheep’, Berger, Mikolayunas and Thomas, writing from Wisconsin, explain three management systems for weaning lambs ‘so producers can milk the ewes.’. These systems (presumably in the United States) are Day-1 system, Day-30 system, and MIX system. As Susan Schoenian of Sheep 101 (sheep101.info) tells us - in regards management of dairy sheep (in the United States) - ‘Maximum milk yield is obtained when the lambs are removed from their dams within 24 hours of birth and raised on artificial milk replacer’. So, it would appear that the earlier the moment of separation of mother and lamb, the more milk will be available for allocation to form other - and commercial - products.
Recently on the BBC ‘Countryfile’ television programme a segment showed a visit to a farm which had sheep for diary. One of the farmers, when asked what the system for the lambs was, said ‘… these lambs will stay with their mum for 24 to 48 hours so that they get what’s called colostrum …. And then after that, we will take them away from their mums and we rear them all in a unit under heat lamps.’ She went on to say ‘I just try and give the lambs the best possible life we can.’ The segment attracted viewer criticism as examples, ‘Taking the lambs away from their mothers so early doesn’t sit well with me’ and ‘the poor lambs stay with their mums for only 24 hours and then taken away. What a s****y life’, and ‘Just can’t agree with the treatment of lambs on there just now. So very cruel for the mothers and wee lambs..’ (reported by Jill Robinson in The Sun, 13th February 2023).
What we see here, overall, is human intervention into, and disruption of, a natural, needed and fulfilling process for a lamb and its mother. This is because humans’ wish to gain income from sheep dairy, so taking mothers’ milk produced for lambs’ growth, nutrition, and nurture.