@*tippy*toes* wrote:
I don't get lambing in winter, especially where I live. Hundreds die every night due to cold. Then the farmers whinge because of their losses. It's cruel. Sheep can be lambed whenever you like. They come into oestrus when they are joined with a ram, so you can plan it whenever you like. It's surprising how many around here shear in winter and then complain about the losses. We've got a sheep graziers warning current tonight and there are newborns all over the place. It makes me sad.
I do agree with you that many sheep breeds should not be lambed in the middle of winter. It is mainly inexperienced, part time or hobby farmers who do this as besides the welfare issues, it is simply not ecenomical for proffesional, commercial farmers to have lambs dying due to exposure.
Unfortunately not all breeds mate when we choose. I mainly run pure bred white suffolks due to their natural ability to withstand cold conditions. These are British breed sheep that have developed body fats etc over thousands of years to withstand icy winds, a bit like a polar bear.
These sheep have a very limited breeding season with oestrus dictated by day length. They will not normally cycle until day length starts to reduce after the longest day in January, giving a lambing of around June 1st - end of September. Introducing rams earlier will not prompt early oestrus. This breed of sheep and their lambs normally have no problems lambing in cold weather as they are naturally adapted for it, but pure bred ewes are not commercially available. The only reason I have large numbers of these is that I ran a stud for many years.
A September lambing would see lambs being born in the grass seed season and still young when weather heats up in October / November. This can be just as deadly for lambs as cold weather and young lambs can be susceptible to stunted growth on dry summer feed and fly strike over the summer months, particualerly if affected by grass seeds. The grass seeds also get in small lambs eyes which is very painful for the lamb..
Fortunately this year we had an exceptional summer with green feed right through the summer season. This upset the white Suffolks natural breeding cycle with the result that most lambed by the end of May.
I also run Dorper sheep which do lamb all year around. These lambed in April early May in ideal conditions.
So when I say I have lambs, they are actually quite big now and it is time to tail dock them and tag them. All lambs must be tagged with a coded / registered tag before they can be sold commercialy. This is to enable property tracking if Australia ever has an outbreak of disease such as foot and mouth. Intestinal worms are also a problem during the cold wet weather. I am flat out injecting long acting drenches to keep the ewes clean through the coming months.
All up a very busy time of the year.
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