(Lab-ferment is the ingredient which separates part of the protein and most of the fat as cheese and the rest as whey, which was presumably consumed by the herders and cheese-makers as a staple of their diet.)
I started wondering about how the trans-humant high pasture cheesers got their basic ingredient for cheese-making. (I was thinkin of alpine practice - which had female herders - but this applies as much to Heortling herders.)
Now obviously the cows are sent up to the pastures pregnant, since your average breeding bull won't tolerate such a trip. Half of the calfs will be male, most of whom can be slaughtered without harming the herd size. My question is whether the cheese-maker (cheese or butter being the only transportable form of dairy product to be brought back into the lowlands) performed some slaughtering herself or whether a single slaughtered calf can supply several cheese-makers.
Speaking of Heortlings, the same would apply to sheep. Do lamb stomachs produce as much lab-ferment, usable for curdling cow-milk too?
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