Carcase weights: Factory procurement agents report spring lambs achieving much better slaughter performance than envisaged. This is stemming from two avenues – lambs performing well this spring and being heavier than anticipated at drafting and secondly from lambs achieving a favourable kill-out. There have been reports of a significant percentage of lambs recording carcase weights in the 20kg to 22kg weight bracket with smaller numbers rising to 23kg to 24kg carcase weight.

These lambs are compounding existing supply challenges of a high number of heavy hoggets in the market and, as such, demand is lower for heavier spring lambs. This is particularly evident in mart and direct farm sales with factory agents slower to compete for heavier lots.

Producers should be mindful of this and switch to earlier or more frequent drafting.

There is no merit in letting lambs run into heavier weights, particularly where it is on the back of creep feeding and eating into potential margins.

Young creep fed lambs will achieve a kill-out percentage in the region of 48% to 50%, while aged lambs which have an average cover of flesh and are drier in the wool will achieve a lower kill-out falling back to 44% to 45%.

It is also important to select lambs on a combination of weight and fat cover with ewe lambs especially at risk of going overfat. It is also advisable to query the upper weight limit payable if trading in the factory with some producers negotiating an extra 0.5kg bringing the upper paid limit to 20.5kg since 01 May.

Nematodirus reminder: The high risk period for nematodirus has passed for many flocks but it is still a concern for later lambing flocks or those where there is a significant spread in lambing and younger lambs were not covered at the first treatment. Lambs that have not received any treatment or those exhibiting the characteristic symptoms of scouring should be treated with the advice to administer a white drench to reduce the rate of resistance developing to other anthelmintic classes.

Lambs aged over six weeks will develop natural immunity as the season progresses with the exception on swards where there is a very high burden and lambs are under nutritional stress.

Clinical signs of nematodirus should not be confused with coccidiosis which can also be identified by a bad scour but one that is grey or black in colour. Lambs with coccidiosis can be seen straining and performance will quickly suffer with high mortality levels common during an outbreak. Treatment is via suitable oral drenches.

Sheep welfare scheme tasks: For farmers participating in the Sheep Welfare Scheme there is a suite of measures which are time sensitive to the next few months. This includes flystrike control, lameness control and parasite control while for hill flocks lambing and weaning earlier the option of mineral supplementation of lambs pre-weaning may also be coming under the radar over the next month to six weeks.