Why we do this? The cheeses produced by the Black Sheep Creamery are hand made on our farm from the milk of our Rideau-Arcott and East Friesian sheep. Brad is the main cheesemaker and the whole family helps in many ways. We went to Idaho to get our first three sheep in 2000. Our second son had a sensitivity to cow milk and was quite able to tolerate sheep milk. The first three ewes were named Flopsy, Mopsy and Rattail. A “rat tail” is a tail that is not woolly, it is covered with hair and is typical to the East Friesian breed of sheep. Well, in order to produce milk the ewes needed to have lambs. We had seven lambs our first year and our son did quite well on sheep milk. The second year with five additional ewes there were 15 babies and a lot of milk. Our son drank well and the freezer was well stocked so we began to make cheese in the kitchen. The next year there were 25 lambs and we began to make moves to become a Grade A Dairy. We received our Grade A Dairy license in August of 2004 and our Food Processors license, for the cheese room, in March of 2005. Thank you for your interest. We hope you enjoy our products as much as we have enjoyed creating them.