Ensuring ewes have time to recuperate is an important consideration while farmers are weaning lambs their flocks.
This is according to the head of sheep knowledge transfer at Teagasc, Michael Gottstein, who said weaning time gives farmers a chance to press the reset button on thin ewes.
He said it “is not uncommon to see 25-30% of ewes sub-optimal in terms of body condition score (BCS) at mating time”, and that this percentage can rise to “50% at lambing time”.
Gottstein stated that thin ewes are “poorer mothers, and have lower milk yield and poorer colostrum quality”.
The head of sheep knowledge transfer said that in the past spring, farmers with a big proportion of ewes in poor condition at lambing experienced much higher levels of mortality in lambs.
Ewe management
Gottstein said that while forcing ewes to lose weight after weaning is not a good idea, restricting ewes for a week to 10 days after weaning to help to dry them up is a good idea.
After that, he said ewes should be grouped according to body condition, with thin ones getting priority access to grass and heavier ewes being used to graze out paddocks.
Ewes in poor condition need good quality grass and Gottstein said they must be given priority access to grass as soon as possible after weaning.
Weaning lambs
The optimum time to wean lambs is at 14 weeks or 100-days-of-age. Because lamb performance is a little bit back on most farms this year, there may be a temptation to leave lambs suckling ewes a bit longer, Gottstein said.
He argued that this is a bad idea, as sheep are selective grazers and the ewes will compete with the lambs for the best grass, thus reducing lamb performance.
After weaning, Gottstein said it is a good idea to divide the lambs into grazing groups according to weight.
Many farmers find that running a finishing group of lambs of over 35-38kg that are receiving 300-500g of concentrates daily is useful in terms of keeping lambs moving.
Lighter lambs can be allowed to gain weight on grass and subsequently moved into the finishing group once they achieve the desired liveweight.