Displaying items by tag: lambing

Improving lamb survival rates is a key focus for New Zealand farmers, especially this time of year.

Lambing is now well advanced around much of New Zealand, including in areas where drought-like conditions are presenting real challenges for farmers, on top of a poor run of prices for their product.

A Christchurch manufacturer of woollen covers for newborn lambs says his covers pay dividends in survival rates and liveweight gains, especially at a time when farmers are feeling the economic pinch.

Ewes' feeding requirements increase in the latter stages of pregnancy and even more so during lactation.

Farmers traditionally reliant on Bionic Plus capsules to manage internal parasites in ewes over lambing are being warned they may need to plan to farm without the product this year.

With lambing and calving about to start, Beef + Lamb New Zealand is reminding farmers of the importance of providing ewes and cows with suitable, well-sheltered areas for lambing and calving.

The ewe is under her greatest nutritional and metabolic stress in late pregnancy and in early lactation.

On average, sheep and beef farmers achieved a lower lambing percentage in spring 2019 than in 2018, according to Beef + Lamb New Zealand.

Most of the ewes that make up the New Zealand ewe flock are high performance animals, many of them sitting on a metabolic knife-edge as they get closer to lambing, says Ben Allot, North Canterbury Vets.

Expect lambing percentages to be lower in many regions this year as the effects of a severe outbreak of facial eczema (FE) hit home.