Abstract
The milk sheep has hitherto been raised all over the world, but nowadays it is reared only in Germany, Holland, France, Japan, Balkan peninsula, Africa, etc. Of all the milk sheep the East Friesian in Germany is most famous, because it is proliferous and capable of producing much hair, flesh and milk; it is, moreover, very resistant against moist climate and can be reared as goat in a bare land.
Since 1924 we studied for about three years the above mentioned sheep in various respects and obtained very interesting results, a part of which is described here as the first report.
a) Breeding: The result of breeding expeiments was quite satisfactory, rather better than that of other kinds of sheep.
b) Hair: The hair production was by no means inferior to that of German milk sheep, in the female it averaged 2, 5kg. for two experimental shearings.
c) Milk: Having used 20 sheep, it has been obtained that the lactation period was 256 days and the total milk production amounted to 188 kg. on an average. Regarding the lactation period there was remarked no difference between one sheep and those reared in Germany, but with respect to the milk production ours were proved to be inferior, for in Germany they produce generally 400-500kg. of milk.
d) Quality of milk: The colour of the sheep milk is bright bluish yellow immediately after partrition, but generally it is white. According to our inves-tigation, pH was found to be 6, 16-6, 82, specific glavity 1, 0350-1, 0577 and the total solid matter 15, 79-31, 48%. The quality of sheep milk may be said to be better than that of cow milk, because nitrogen compounds and fat were found to be contained much more in it espectally the latter more than two times that of cow milk.
Comparing the sheep milk with goat milk, we have found that the former resembled very much the latter in every respect, but the quantity of fat was much larger.
