On sheep farms where replacements are mated as ewe lambs, the management period between breeding and lambing is crucial. Mated ewe lambs have yet to reach maturity, but they are trying to support foetal development. This puts animals under increasing physical and nutritional stress.

Poorly managed animals are more likely to be underdeveloped at lambing time, thereby experiencing greater lambing difficulty and producing less milk to rear progeny.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, giving ewe lambs unrestricted access to high-quality forage and overfeeding concentrates also increases lambing difficulty through higher birth weights.

Priority management

With breeding finishing, ewe lambs should receive priority management so that animals are properly developed and lambing down in a fit condition.

Start by minimising stress levels once breeding finishes. This means keeping ewe lambs on a steady plane of nutrition to reduce the risk of early embryonic losses.

Therefore, don’t be in a rush to move lambs to winter grazing or outfarms for at least 30 to 35 days post-breeding.

If grass is limited, temporarily introduce silage to supplement grazing until the risk period is over.

Keep on top of parasites and monitor body condition closely to ensure grazing is providing adequate nutrition. Lambs need to be gaining around 0.75kg/week on lowland farms.

Farmer focus: Paraic McNeill, Annaclone, Co Down

Ewe lambs have always been bred on Paraic’s farm. In more recent years, regular weighing and an EID software package has allowed Paraic, and his father Seamus, to be much more selective when choosing homebred replacements to go to the ram.

This autumn, 50 lambs ran with two rams from 28 October to 28 November, with another 25 lambs carried over for breeding next year.

Retaining 75 ewe lambs would be higher than normal. However, this year, there was a heavy cull of problem and less-productive ewes.

Breed type

The nucleus of the breeding ewe flock is a mix of Texel ewes crossed to Suffolk sires and vice versa.

But in order to improve maternal traits and increase lamb numbers, Paraic purchased some Mule ewe lambs this year, as well as retaining the first crop of Belclare lambs born on the farm in 2020.

Going forward, the plan is to retain greater numbers of Belclare-cross lambs and scale back the replacements with Texel-cross-Suffolk breeding.

Minimum breeding weight

The big challenge with breeding ewe lambs is having animals properly developed by the time they lamb down.

On Paraic’s farm, ewe lambs were set a minimum breeding weight of 48kg for homebred Belclare and Texel-cross-Suffolk animals.

The outlined target represents 65% of the average mature ewe weight (73kg) for the flock. For the Mule ewe lambs, a minimum breeding weight of 44kg was used as a cut-off.

Recording liveweights through the EID farm software package makes it a lot easier to work on such criteria.

Additional factors used when selecting replacements include lambs being born to twin-bearing ewes, as well as animals bred from ewes giving fewer management problems.

Second lambing ewes

Working to target breeding weights means ewe lambs are better equipped to cope with the physical stress of rearing lambs as yearling animals.

With stronger lambs selected, there is less chance of animals being stunted. In Paraic’s flock, the second lambing ewes that went to the ram averaged 67kg, just 5kg below the average mature ewe weight.

Ram selection

Lambing ease is crucial when working with ewe lambs. On Paraic’s farm, replacements have run with Beltex rams in recent years.

However, a Charollais ram was purchased in 2020 with lambing ease in mind. The new flock sire mated 25 lambs, while a Beltex ram covered the other 25 animals bred.

Winter grazing

There is little point in setting a minimum breeding weight only to take your eye off weight gain over winter.

Paraic intends to run his ewe lambs on grass covers built up over the autumn to keep lambs growing. Once covers are depleted, silage bales will be introduced.

Housing

Housing is weather-dependent. Ewe lambs normally come inside for priority management around two to three weeks prior to lambing.

As housing space is limited, the flock is split across three distinct lambing groups, two of which are mature ewes, with ewe lambs the last group to lamb down.

Silage is normally analysed to determine the levels of concentrate feeding required pre-lambing. Body condition score is also a factor in supplementary concentrate feeding levels.

Ewe lambs in good flesh are offered lower levels of meal feeding and vice versa, with twin-bearing animals also getting a higher rate of concentrate.

Pariac’s preference is that ewe lambs are carrying single lambs, but there is always a small percentage of twins.

Post lambing

As ewe lambs are under greater physical stress post-lambing, they continue to get priority management.

Animals remain in mothering pens for 48 to 72 hours after lambing to ensure they have bonded with their progeny.

Post-lambing, ewe lambs are grazed as a separate group on younger, reseeded swards up until weaning time.

Concentrates are fed for the first few weeks after turn-out and creep feeders are introduced around 10 weeks post-lambing, taking the pressure off animals in their first lactation.

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