![Understanding heat stress in ewes has allowed Matthew Coddington, Roseville Park, Dubbo, to breed more lambs. Photo: Mark Griggs Understanding heat stress in ewes has allowed Matthew Coddington, Roseville Park, Dubbo, to breed more lambs. Photo: Mark Griggs](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/334SJykdvUCJfqBEPWeHBdB/e019359e-35bf-4bf5-bd25-bdb0cf620295.JPG/r419_485_3014_2119_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Despite running a third of his usual sheep capacity, Dubbo sheep producer Matthew Coddington is set to potentially wean an extra 400 lambs this year as he refines his practices during the drought.
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Recently speaking at the Farmers Adapting to Risk and Markets forum hosted by Central Tablelands Local Land Services in Orange last Thursday, Mr Coddington explained his successes were attributed to good conception rates in summer and joining ewe lambs, due to shearing twice a year and understanding heat stress.
"You get 10 per cent more wool, 10 per cent more lambs and 10 per cent more money straight up with all those things," he said.
"We have been able to achieve normal pregnancy scan results, despite lambing percentages dropping in many operations earlier this year. The cost of shearing is not a limiting factors. The benefits far out weight the limitations for us and what we are doing on farm."
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Mr Coddington had been completing six monthly shearings for five years straight.
"We shear two months before joining and two months before lambing. So we shear in October and March, join in December and lamb in May," he said.
"We join in December to lamb in May so we can let the lambs go through as a 10-month-old unshorn lambs to shear the next March to get all the breeding value information as you need a minimum of six month wool on them.
"We scan in March and re-join dry ewes for a quick three week power join which means we lamb again in September. When they come in and are shorn in October is when we mark their lambs, and that is how we have simplified our operation."
![Mr Coddington has been doing six month shearing for five years straight now. They shear in October and March. Mr Coddington has been doing six month shearing for five years straight now. They shear in October and March.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/334SJykdvUCJfqBEPWeHBdB/a0b27a98-73fd-461c-856e-26c09f34a308.JPG/r0_361_3696_2447_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Shearing at the start of October allows them to beat the grass seeds and increase their yields.
"Shearing again in March they were running through summer on stubble and lucerne paddocks getting full of dust, but now they are shorn in October they don't seem to suck in as much dust," he said.
Mr Coddington also hadn't had a wool classer in the shed for eight years.
"We have a raised board, and very good New Zealand rouseabouts that come in and do a lot of cleaning up on the board and most fleeces go straight into the press," Mr Coddington said.
"Just that saving alone, on our shearing and no classer, is $12,000 a year.
"The fact I now shear twice a year, we don't Clik anymore and that is another $12,000 saving."
Mr Coddington believes the shearing helps stimulate the metabolism of the sheep, with sheep fattening easily six to eight weeks after shearing.
"So I found our condition score through the year has been maintained a lot easier, with a lot less feed just with them being shorn," he said.
Carrying lambs through the dry winter last year, Mr Coddington said his ewes cut 2.1 kilograms at 15.7 micron wool in October, while in a decent season they achieved 4.2kg of 18 micron wool.
"We weaned the lambs at 60 days and the same ewes were shorn again in March and did 4.5kg of 18 micron wool," he said.
Another thing he is doing different in the drought is weaning at two months of age and imprinting the lamb onto lick feeders while they are still on their mother
"The lambs are weaned and put straight onto lick feeders and we are getting zero shy feeders or lamb losses," he said.
"We are putting 600 lambs into 15 hectare paddocks and moving them onto feed and water twice a day for the first week," he said. "Weighed at 16 weeks they were the same as normal, around 40kg at four months."
Mr Coddington said last year was not about the wool clip, but rather about the welfare of the sheep, the condition score and less feeding.
"It was a management decision for me," he said. "I didn't care what it made or what the length was. I had to get it off them, to get the ewes ready to join again in December. We even joined 2018-drop ewe lambs, which scanned 88pc the other day (wet/dry scan). They are due in July."