Radio Transcript

Welcome to Agritalk Radio

This week we are going to be talking about the Lifetime Wool Project. 

Lifetime wool is a national project, proudly supported by wool producers through Australian Wool Innovation and five state government departments, and farmer co-operators across Southern Australia.

It has a series of ewe and pasture targets that increase productivity and profitability of Merino sheep enterprise for regions across southern Australia.
Katrina Copping from Struan research centre tells us that

‘The first 48 hours of a lamb's life are critical.  Around 70% of lamb mortality that occurs between birth and weaning occurs within this period.  Lamb survival is related to lamb birth-weight’.

It might seem like common sense, but the Lifetime Wool project
has proven that ‘Ewes in better condition at lambing produce bigger lambs.
A Condition Score decrease in ewes during pregnancy can reduce lamb birth-weight by 0.4 to 0.5 kg in both single and twin lambs.’

Lamb survival rate is also mostly explained by differences in lamb birth-weight.   Survival decreases sharply when lamb birth-weight drops below 4.0 kg. A 0.5 kg decrease in birth-weight from the average has less effect on the survival of single lambs than the survival of twin lambs (~10-15% lower).

Lamb birth-weight is determined by ewe nutrition both in early pregnancy (during placental development) and in the last 50 days of pregnancy, which is a period of rapid foetal growth.

Ewe nutrition during late-pregnancy and lambing has a large effect on lamb survival. Single bearing ewes should be in CS 2.8 to 3.0, and twin bearing ewes should be in CS 3.0 to 3.3 by lambing to optimise lamb survival, especially in an environment susceptible to poor lambing conditions.
Poor ewe nutrition and low condition at lambing also has detrimental effects on maternal behaviour and lamb behaviour that contribute to increased mortality. Ideally the ewe and lamb should remain at the birth site for at least 6 hours.

Further information and ewe management strategies can be found at the lifetime wool website  or  you can contact SARDI Livestock Systems, Struan Research Centre, 08 8762 9191 for hard copies of the published research and variety of management tools that are now becoming available through the life time wool project.

For further information on this story or any edition of Agritalk, please visit www.ruralsolutions.sa.gov.au, click on news, then radio.  You will find a transcript of the program along with lots of handy links to the things discussed.

AUTHOR: Information kindly supplied by Katrina Copping, Research Officer, SARDI, Struan Research Centre. Contact Katrina - copping.katrina@saugov.sa.gov.au
CONTACT: Tarnya Brooksby, Rural Solutions SA Keith Office, Telephone: 08 8755 3166
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