Early lambing ewes:

Reports from scanners indicate that the number of early lambing ewes is well back, with producers pushing the lambing date towards midseason lambing on the back of high costs and poor returns in recent years. Those lambing in late December/early January are now entering a critical stage with demand rising rapidly.

It is important to ensure that the nutritional needs of ewes are met with access to high-quality forage/concentrate feeding. It is particularly important to maintain condition in early lambing ewes as these are likely to be under more nutritional stress post lambing. The table (right) details guideline concentrate supplementation for 75kg to 80kg twin-bearing ewes in good body condition. This can be reduced/increased by 30% for single- and triplet-bearing ewes, respectively. Protein becomes an important component of the diet in the final two weeks of pregnancy. The general recommendation is a protein content of 18% to 20% for medium litter sizes (1.6 to 1.9 lambs per ewe). Given the low cost per animal of increasing protein content it may be more straightforward if ordering concentrate a few weeks before lambing to purchase the feed that will be fed in late pregnancy and early lambing. This will also prevent any possible intake issues in changing the diet in late pregnancy.

Closing paddocks:

Hill farmers practising single-sire mating or crossbreeding on a percentage of their ewe flock are coming near the end of breeding. Many will re-join ewes now and either bunch up rams to run with ewes for another couple of weeks or let a smaller number of rams run with a larger batch or ewes. It is important to remove ewes from in-bye or improved pasture areas that will be used for lambing next spring. These areas require a rest period of 120 days to give any chance for the sward to recover and generate a supply of grass for spring. Where turning ewes back to hill grazing, it is worth considering administering a fluke dose with a product that prevents acute fluke – ie targets at least immature fluke parasites.

Grazing catch crops:

Catch crops under GLAS can be grazed since 1 December. Management is key to letting animals get accustomed to the crop and preventing digestive issues. This can be best achieved by giving animals access to a run back area at the outset. Utilisation will be optimised by offering the crop in a strip or paddock-grazing system using temporary electric wire or netting. The secret to implementing this is having a good shock in the fence at the outset. If animals are trained to the fence at the start, they will be far less likely to breach the fence than if the fence is poorly erected or electrified when animals are first faced with it.