A Monumental Year for Milking

2024 was a big year for the sheep at Blackberry Farm and for the Farmstead team who have worked to grow our herd and the milking program on property. Farmstead Manager Christen Waddell shares about the history of the milking program at the Farm and what’s on the horizon for our sheep as we enter a new year:

The sheep dairy at Blackberry Farm was first built in the late 2000s, and 2008 is the first record that we have of it with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. It was an extremely small operation at that point, and it only ran for a couple of years. For a while, a local dairy farm helped with the milking of our flock, bringing the milk to Blackberry for our cheese program. In late 2019, we reopened the milking parlor on property, and in early 2020 we began using the sheep milk produced on property to make cheese. Since then, we have been producing around 21,000 pounds of milk per year for our creamery and supplementing any additional need with milk from a nearby local farm.

In 2024, we celebrated an exciting milestone. It was the first year that we made all of our sheep milk cheeses from sheep milk collected on property! From when we began milking on February 10 to when we ended milking on August 1, we produced about 64,000 pounds (7,331 gallons) of sheep milk! We wanted to produce all of our own sheep milk on property because it allows us more control over the product. For one, our production efforts on property align with our sustainability practices. We can have a lot more control over how much milk we are producing and can match that amount to our creamery goals – not having a surplus of milk that won’t get used. Additionally, we can control the quality of the milk. We can ensure that the sheep are pasture-raised and well cared for. Raising the sheep and controlling what they eat gives us more influence on the flavor and quality of the milk. We can also hold our parlor sanitation and animal health standards to the highest level, which improves the quality of the milk and its cheesemaking properties.

For about a month or so after the milking season ended, we continued to bring sheep into the parlor just once per day to milk any that were still producing large amounts of milk. This is important, because if we just stopped milking them before they were dried off, they could get sick or be in pain. Once milking season is over for the year, the sheep are on a bit of a vacation. So, we made sure they were comfortable and ready to enjoy it.

We'll continue to do periodic health checks on everyone, but other than that, all of the sheep get to relax and hang out until lambs start to be born again next year. Our first lambs are due January 25, and they will continue being born through February. We can’t wait to welcome new lambs to our flock. As of now, we plan to start the 2025 milking season on February 4.

- Christen Waddell, Farmstead Manager