Straight from the Farmer: Sheep Dairyman Part One
By Matt Gelbwaks, FACT Mentor, and Katie Meade, Humane Farming Program Associate
Today on Straight from the Farmer, our truly exceptional FACT Mentor, Matt Gelbwaks shares about his life as a sheep dairyman and egg farmer. After reading through Matt’s interview I was struck with how relevant and applicable his highs and lows are to those of us who commit our lives to raising livestock humanely. From getting sentimental about culling (and realizing the consequences the next season), loving those early mornings before things go astray or not trusting your gut - we can all relate. Matt’s words are refreshingly honest, reassuring and downright comforting.
I hope you enjoy Matts’ authentic prose and words of wisdom as much as I did!
Photos and interview provided by Matt Gelbwaks, Blackeyed Susan Sheep Dairy, Mont Vernon, NH, Instagram @blackeyedsusansheepdairy
What is the main focus of your dairy? Herd size and farm size?
We are NH’s only Grade A certified sheep dairy, and therefore clearly, the best one! We milk a cross that is mostly East Friesian with the rest Assaf. The East Friesian is considered the Holstein of the dairy sheep world – they are big and produce a lot of milk. They are also considered a tri-purpose animal because, besides the milk, they produce a pretty good carcass and fairly good wool. Right now, we don’t have much of a market for the wool, but the meat gets snapped up and again, we produce the BEST sheep milk in the state, so that is a great market too! The Assaf is a new breed created in the Mediterranean region to produce gobs of milk and do great in their hotter drier climate. With climate change here in the North East, the cross has given us great climate resiliency. They also have wonderful temperaments and out-produce out straight EFs. Note for those keeping score: the Assaf is an EF/Awasi cross so our sheep are still mostly EF.
EFs are typically mostly white with an occasional black one thrown in. Assafs seem to carry a brown gene and the brown tends to be dominant. We now have whites, blacks, browns and even a couple calicos. The other endearing trait the Assafs have are long floppy ears that dance when the sheep run. That is fun to watch too!
We are milking 50+ ewes this year and averaging over a gallon a day from each of the mature ewes, but less from the yearlings. We made some changes in our husbandry and feeding approaches for this season and surprisingly increased production 40% animal by animal. We did not account for this much improvement and now seem to regularly overflow our bulk tank (as folks say – that is a good problem to have, but it is still a problem). A good portion of the increase is due to changing our feeding program. We worked with a sheep dairy nutritionist and our feed company to create the feeding regime and it seems to be producing some dramatic improvements. We have always thought our sheep were pretty average, so what we are finding is that either they are more stupendous than average or everyone’s average sheep could perform stupendously if their environmental factors were optimized for dairy production…too early to tell.
The farm is an old New England farm, meaning it is mostly wooded, with some poor pasture and all the cropland either regrown into woods or sold off years ago for development. It had not been farmed for at least half a century before we bought it and slowly brought it back. The beautiful old NE style barn was totally inappropriate for sheep, so it is now just a statuesque hay storage facility and we built a brand new state of the art sheep dairy and creamery that was already too small by the time we moved in, but it will help keep us focused and not allow us to expand beyond our means and what the land can support. Given the state of the land, we buy in all our hay and feed, though we still grow our own treats (apples in the fall ☺ ).
The sheep dairy represents half of the farm, the other half – which is actually its own farm next door – is a pasture egg operation that is centered around a state-of-the-art, purpose-built barn (first and only of its kind and mostly works as intended). We run about 3000 layers with roosters, guineas, and peafowl in a little ecosystem that keeps both terrestrial and aerial predators at bay. The egg operation has been running for at least a decade, the sheep dairy is only in its second year as a Grade A commercial operation – previously it was kinda a hobby thingy.
Here are some pictures of both operations:
What do you mainly produce, and how does that product get to market?
Mostly we are producing yogurt and cheeses like Feta and Manchego. To break up the monotony, we also make some Asiago, Havarti, Romano, Haloumi, and Ricotta. We also make a fair amount of Gelato and sell raw milk on request. The Gelato has an incredible profit margin, but it is a value add to a value add. We have a unique recipe that we developed that does not use eggs nor any non-sheep milk components (many sheep and goat milk ice creams use heavy cream from cows to add density, but our recipe avoids that so it is something that folks who can not digest cows milk can get great pleasure from!).
We keep expanding the cheese repertoire with new varieties as we better understand the nuances of the milk from different parts of the milking season. We will ultimately narrow down the scope and focus on a couple of hard cheeses and a couple of fresh cheeses and make them our signatures…over time.
We sell most of our products at farm markets and farm stands. We have an established delivery route and set of customers for our eggs and many of them also take cheese or ice cream, and some even take meat and other products to sell to their customers. We have a few restaurants we supply as well, but our price point is often too high for the majority of the places around the farm. We have a growing customer base who comes out to the farm, the majority of them are regular egg customers but some are folks we meet at farm markets who enjoy both seeing where their food comes from and having a day in the country.
What is something about your farm that people might find surprising?
We are both the only Grade A Sheep Dairy in the state and the largest pasture-raised egg producer in New England. The chickens enjoy the whey that is produced from cheese making as well as the cheeses that do not pass muster. The sheep live on the old Trow Farm – one of the three families that founded our town and – that was created by a King’s Grant back in the early 1700s. The chickens live on another part of the Trow homestead that was being converted into development during the previous financial crisis and never got beyond our one house…when they could not sell the rest of the lots, they asked us if we wanted to use them and suddenly we found ourselves back into agriculture, after a 40-year hiatus.
What is the best part of your day on the farm?
In my hiatus from farming, I was a “management consultant”. This mostly meant I told executives what they already knew but did not want to admit out loud. One of the quotes we used most frequently was a riff on something said very subtly by several historically relevant people, but resaid most excellently by Mike Tyson – “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth…”
The best part of the day is that time just after first light when you can see clearly and everything still carries its pastoral sheen. I love walking the farm at that time because everything is new and there are no problems anywhere…until one jumps up and punches you in the face. I love first thing in the morning because nothing has gone awry yet (that happens second thing in the morning) and the plan I concocted over the first cup of coffee still holds true. Every morning, I walk Tam the dog from the house to the dairy (half a mile?) and can take in the freshness of the day and create plans for today as well as for the rest of the week. Usually, by the time I get to the dairy something has fractured my reverie and the plans need to be adjusted, but that 20 minutes is pure bliss!
After my first walk, it seems I am always playing catch-up and so everything needs to move and move much faster! I’ve taken to logging plans as various types of to-do lists on my phone so I always have it in case (ha!) I have a free moment or two and want to select a task.
In Part Two of Matt’s interview you’ll get sage advice on his future plans, advice for new dairy farmers and what he wished he had known before he started his one of a kind sheep dairy.