🥛 Milk by species

Milk by species is a section about the milk of different animals and humans and how they differ. All mammals produce milk, but humans milk only a few species. According to the FAO, about 81% of the world’s milk comes from cows, about 15% from buffalo, about 2% from goats, about 1% from sheep and about 0.4% from camels; the rest comes from yaks, mares, donkeys, reindeer and other “minor” dairy animals. Human breast milk stands apart as food for infants that is not sold as a commodity.

Milk from different species varies greatly in composition. In ruminants (cow, goat, sheep, buffalo, yak), caseins dominate the protein and fat is usually 3–8%. In equids (mare, donkey), milk is low in fat, sweet and closer to human milk in its protein balance. Camelid milk contains no β-lactoglobulin. Northern animals such as reindeer and moose have very concentrated milk, similar to cream.

The differences reflect the young animal’s way of life: how fast it must grow, what climate it lives in and how often it suckles. That is why seal milk can be more than half fat, while donkey milk has less than 1%. For people it also matters that different milks make different products: sheep and buffalo milk yield a lot of cheese and butter, while mare’s milk makes kumis but not cheese.