Composition and aptitude for cheese-making of milk from cows, buffaloes, goats, sheep, dromedary camels, and donkeys.

Bovines produce about 83% of the milk and dairy products consumed by humans worldwide, the rest represented by bubaline, caprine, ovine, camelid, and equine species, which are particularly important in areas of extensive pastoralism. Although milk is increasingly used for cheese production, the cheese-making efficiency of milk from the different species is not well known. This study compares the cheese-making ability of milk sampled from lactating females of the 6 dairy species in terms of milk composition, coagulation properties (using lactodynamography), curd-firming modeling, nutrients recovered in the curd, and cheese yield (through laboratory model-cheese production). Equine (donkey) milk had the lowest fat and protein content and did not coagulate after rennet addition. Buffalo and ewe milk yielded more fresh cheese (25.5 and 22.9%, respectively) than cow, goat, and dromedary milk (15.4, 11.9, and 13.8%, respectively). This was due to the greater fat and protein contents of the former species with...