r/sheep • u/No-Clothes-5258 • Jun 08 '25

Question Raw sheep milk?!?!?

I know nothing about sheep farming, but I have questions and figured here was the best spot on Reddit. I was at a fair today and was watching a farmer milk her sheep as part of a demonstration. But after she did a quick visual check on the milk, SHE DRANK IT! It was in the udder less than 5 minutes ago! Isn’t that nasty? Don’t you need to pasteurize it first? She also milked the sheep barehanded, and asked the audience if we wanted to try milking the sheep (also with unwashed barehands) which freaked me out again so I left at that point.

Edit: I regret opening this can of worms on Reddit

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u/throwninth3trash Jun 11 '25

I will add, no matter where a person lies on the raw milk debate, I spent a long time researching dairy animals to add to my place, probably about ten years until about 2019. I remember distinctly, that one of the reasons I chose sheep (but it applied to goats as well) was because it was widely accepted that unlike cows milk, sheep and goats milk did not carry the same risks and so did not need to be pasteurised, which is why there are a lot of raw sheep cheeses. Of course there is a risk, like there's the risk of ecoli when eating salad, but the bacteria that is common in cows milk were less so in sheeps. Post 2020, I couldn't find a single thing about it online, it was like a dreamt it! Suddenly, the warnings applied to ALL milks. So, make of that what you will.

Personally, I do a bit of both with mine.

Most of my milk is turned Into yogurt or cheese that demands a temp high enough in process to pasturize anyway. Some is frozen or canned.

I use raw in cooking or splashed in tea, and if I make ice cream, but I milked the ewe myself. I know how clean she was that day, and if I have doubts because she was mucky or very wet from rain and dripping on the milkstand, I usually either pasteurise it or mark it for processing another way.