Time of lambing
Aiming to lamb a month before peak pasture production offers the best opportunity to match pasture supply to the energy requirements of your ewes. In a lamb production enterprise, you may choose a compromise between number of ewes joined per hectare, likely reproductive rate, lamb sale weight and timing and market price.
If your favoured lambing time does not match peak pasture growth, additional supplements may be needed to maintain production and prepare ewes for the next joining. Planned growth rates of lambs to meet market specifications may be another factor in determining the best time for lambing.
Time of joining
The first step to weaning more lambs is to ensure most ewes get pregnant in as short a joining period as possible.
Ewes with a higher condition score (CS) conceive more lambs. The Condition scoring tool provides a description of how to condition score.
Ewe condition score at joining is a more important indicator of reproductive rate than a change in condition score through the joining period. Adopt grazing management strategies to keep ewes as close to your target condition score as possible, rather than letting them slip in condition then being forced to supplementary feed ewes close to joining to try to increase productivity.
Oestrus activity in ewes increases after the longest day of the year, in Australia this is 22 December. As day length shortens, cycling activity increases, peaking between March and May when most ewes are cycling and have higher ovulation rates. From an evolutionary point of view the best time to lamb is spring, to align the ewe’s nutritional demand and with the period of greatest feed supply.