The influence of the addition of herbs to the summer diet of sheep on the yield of bundz rennet cheese and its nutritional value

The study was carried out on samples of raw sheep milk and bundz rennet cheese produced from it. The milk was obtained from ewes of the Koluda prolific dairy breed, from June to August. The sheep were housed indoors and fed with alfalfa green forage and a mixture of concentrate feeds. Three groups were formed for the experiment: group I – control, fed without the addition of herbs to the concentrate feed, and groups II and III, in which an herb mixture was added to the concentrate feed in the amount of 10 and 20 g/sheep/day, respectively. Six experimental batches of bundz rennet cheese were made from the sheep milk, and the effect of the addition of herbs to the sheep diet on the chemical composition of the raw milk, the cheese yield, and its nutritional value was analysed. The results showed that the use of the herbal supplement in the feed of the Koluda prolific dairy sheep in summer had no effect on the chemical composition of the raw milk, and thus its value for processing, expressed as the yield of bundz rennet cheese. Moreover, there was no statistically confirmed influence of the experimental factor on the chemical composition of the cheese. Only a tendency towards lower fat content was noted in the group III cheese in comparison with groups I and II (by 6.5% and 8.0% respectively), which resulted in an improved protein-to-fat ratio (by 7.3% and 9.0% respectively) and lower energy value (by 3.6% and 5.2% respectively). We also noted a tendency towards higher mineral content (ash) in the cheese from groups II and III as compared to group I, by 8.7% and 13.0%, respectively However, these differences were not confirmed statistically, probably due to high intra-group variation in this feature (V% in groups I, II and III: 19.7, 33.7 and 46.1, respectively).