Milk
Historically Icelandic sheep were used for milk. There is an 8-week period where Icelandic ewes give milk. After the first two weeks, the lambs were weaned off the mother's milk. Then for the next 6 weeks, the ewes would be milked daily. Most provided about 1 litre (2 imp pt) of milk per day, while good ewes gave 2 litres (4 imp pt) to 3 litres (5 imp pt). The milk was used directly, or made into butter, cheese, an Icelandic soft cheese called skyr, or naturally sweet yogurt. Sheep milk is good for cheese, because it is high in fat and dissolved solids. A high yield of high-quality cheese can therefore be made from small amounts of the milk.
Sheep are not milked in Iceland today, and instead the lamb is allowed to continue suckling.
Read more about this topic: Icelandic Sheep
Famous quotes containing the word milk:
“At first thou gav’st me milk and sweetnesses;
I had my wish and way:
My dayes were straw’d with flow’rs and happinesse;
There was no month but May.
But with my yeares sorrow did twist and grow,
And made a partie unawares for wo.”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)
“The surprise of animals... in and out, cats and dogs and a milk goat and chickens and guinea hens, all taken for granted, as if man was intended to live on terms of friendly intercourse with the rest of creation instead of huddling in isolation on the fourteenth floor of an apartment house in a city where animals occurred behind bars in the zoo.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“We milk the cow of the world,”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)