Displaying items by tag: lambing

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.

White the lamb crop is the lowest since 1953, sheep farmers have become much more productive, says Beef + Lamb NZ chief economist Andrew Burtt.

The sheep production research team at Massey University is busy this spring doing lots of studies on Massey University's agricultural experiment stations.

Roger Tweeds runs 2300 Romney ewes and 200 hoggets on his 300ha farm near Lawrence, Central Otago.