By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

GARRETTSVILLE, Ohio — Abbe and Anderson Turner, of Lucky Penny Creamery would like to process sheep milk at their business, but there are no legal sheep milk producers in Ohio. The Turners hope to change that.

Eight years ago they ventured into farming. They bought a farm and three years later, they started a dairy goat herd and built their creamery in nearby Kent, Ohio.

“We have a small family farm and we raise dairy goats,” Turner said. “We try to farm in a way that keeps the soil and water healthy. We try to raise our children with a healthy understanding of science and nature.”

The family decided on small ruminants because they have three young children – Turner did not want large animals. They considered sheep at the time, but could not find good genetics.
So the Turners began building their goat herd and making artisan goat cheeses, which they market to retailers, restaurants and at a small, onsite store. Yet, as a small producer, having sheep milk to process in addition to the goat milk would help them to balance cash flow over the course of the year.

Their processing facility was built for value-added dairy products. Currently they buy goat milk from a number of farms. The facility is small, which allows them to run small batches of milk. That is important with sheep milk because, depending on the stage of lactation, sheep produce about a quart or two of milk per milking – about half as much as goats. An attractive thing about sheep milk is that it can be flash frozen and that will not deteriorate the quality of the cheese, Turner said.

The Turners may buy some dairy sheep – some preferred breeds are Polypay, Lacaune and East Friesian), but they’d like to also buy sheep milk from other producers. Turner secured a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Farmer/Rancher Grant. She formed an initiative with other interested parties. The initiative is sponsoring a Sheep Dairy Symposium in the hopes of encouraging others to start a dairy sheep herd.

“The goal is to determine the feasibility of producing sheep milk in Ohio and then to explore the opportunity for value-added processing of this milk into artisan sheep cheeses,” Turner said. “We have all of the right ingredients here, it just hasn’t jelled yet.”
“Ohio is blessed with many things that could make this a success,” she said. “We have affordable land, clean water, great grazing. We have major metropolitan markets, which have a high base of consumers that would support higher dollar per pound specialty cheeses. We just don’t have anyone making them yet.”

When Turner wrote the grant she looked at other states, which have had success with sheep cheeses. Wisconsin has a sheep dairy cooperative. Demand there for sheep cheese has increased significantly and that is attributed to marketing initiatives by innovative farmers and small dairies, Turner said.

“This is such a wonderful opportunity someone should do it,” Turner said. “We have all the right ingredients; we just need the catalyst to make it happen. We need to turn the switch. We’re looking for people who might just be slightly interested to attend the symposium. Even if they want to try some other type of livestock project we’re still going to be talking about the importance of genetics and nutrition, and enterprise budgets.”

The symposium will be Nov. 6, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at OSU’s Agricultural Technical Institute (ATI) in Wooster, Ohio. For more information see the accompanying sidebar.