Mortality in ewes and lambs during the lambing period is the largest cause of lost productivity and the greatest expense to sheep production systems annually. Mortality during lambing is generally diagnosed as peri-natal mortality, dystocia, hypocalcaemia and pregnancy toxaemia which combined account for almost $1 billion in lost production to the industry annually.
At the individual farm level, it is not foreign to see scanning rates of 130% to 140% result in weaning percentages of 80% and 90%, with the average lamb producing operation experiencing lamb mortalities of 10% to 35%.1
Interestingly, when investigating the cause of peri-natal mortalities, a combination of mismothering, starvation, stillbirth and dystocia was believed to account for 55% of lamb losses. Single born lambs were more likely to die from dystocia and stillbirth, while twin lambs were more likely to die from starvation, mismothering and a birth injury.2
Although there are many variables that may lead to mortality in pregnant ewes and newborn lambs, birth weight is the largest determinant of lamb survival, and is strongly linked to maternal nutrition.3 Similarly, hypocalcaemia (milk fever) and pregnancy toxaemia (twin lamb disease) are metabolic diseases arising from nutritional deficiencies that can be corrected with effective supplementation.
When the reasons for certain mortalities are understood, you can help to reduce mortalities by identifying a base-line (i.e. what you currently do), measuring the results you usually get (e.g. weaning rate of 115%) and making incremental improvements to your system that address each each of the reasons for mortality (e.g. correcting calcium and magnesium deficiency and boosting ewe and lamb immunity through effective supplementation with StockMins-EweLamLac).
ANP have identified the 127-day period from 7 weeks pre-lambing until 6 weeks post-lambing as the period where a significant amount of upside can be generated from a few incremental improvements in a sheep breeding operation.
On the back of this, ANP’s technical team have highlighted five critical control points that offer opportunity to significantly improve lambing results.
Although incremental improvement at selected control points can have a positive effect on lambing results, all control points are interrelated and compounding, and managing all five can generate substantial improvement.
For assistance on identifying and managing critical control points in your operation contact the team at AusFarm Nutrition Products.
StockMins-EweLamLac is a weatherproof, granular, loose-lick supplement designed to support pregnant and lactating ewes at a time when essential minerals, vitamins and trace elements are in high demand. For best results, StockMins-EweLamLac should be fed from 4 weeks pre-lambing until 4 weeks post-lambing.
See a summary of results from a trial between supplementing ewes with StockMins-EweLamLac HE and Causmag, lime & salt by clicking HERE
