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When the porous cloth was covered, she tied the corners together, squeezing out a stream of yellow whey.
“It’s not very glamorous, cheesemaking, is it?” Butler joked as she unfolded another cloth.
Even as California is poised to steal Wisconsin’s crown as the cheese-making capital of the country, pioneers such as Butler are gaining ground making artisan cheeses from sheep and other non-bovine milk.
Sheep dairies such as the Butlers’ sprang up around the Midwest in the mid 1980s as a niche industry, according to Yves Berger, superintendent and sheep researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Extension’s Spooner Agriculture Research Station.
In 2006, there were about 2,250 ewes in 11 Wisconsin herds, and the majority of farmers planned to increase their herds, according to the state’s Agricultural Statistics Service. Of the 165 goat farms, 80 percent planned to increase their production.
The high demand for cheese in the United States offers a promising outlook for the sheep dairying industry, Berger said. Especially because of its nutritional value — more calcium, proteins and vitamins than cow’s milk — sheep’s milk sells for a premium. Butler said she gets more than 50 cents per pound, compared with a market rate of about 13 cents a pound for cow milk.
The origin of cheesemaking is unknown, but it’s believed to have started accidentally 4,000 years ago. Today, there are 400 kinds of cheeses with 2,000 names. Although cow milk dominates the American market, the product can be made from virtually any mammal’s milk—goats, sheep, buffalo, reindeer, camels, even zebras.
Often, the taste of home-produced artisan cheeses varies depending on the season and what the animals are eating.
Butler and her husband, Bill, moved from a rural sheep farm near Albany, N.Y., to Whitehall in 1993 after farming costs skyrocketed. They became one of the first grade-A sheep dairy farms in the country by 1996.
At first, the Butlers milked 200 ewes year-round and went through distributors and multiple farmers’ markets to sell their signature yogurt and cheeses. A couple of years ago, they scaled back to milking about 75 ewes seasonally. Now, they only sell their camembert, brie, feta, and tome style cheeses on Saturdays at the Madison farmers’ market.
“There comes a point where most people in farming need to decide which way to go,” said Butler, who also works full-time as a clinical therapist in Arcadia. “We decided to be more seasonal.”
Janet and Bill Butler like being a small operation and find it helps them provide education to their customers.
“People were getting the idea that sheep milk isn’t so weird and we liked the direct contact with the customers. People would come back every year and thank us,” Butler said. “People know when they buy from me that I made it and Bill milked it.”
Amber Dulek is a reporter
at the Winona Daily News.
