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).