Lamb survival lessons dished up in webinar

That's according to livestock production consultant Nathan Scott from Achieve Ag Solutions.

Mr Scott shared tips for improving lamb survival during a recent webinar held as part of Meat & Livestock Australia's productivity and profitability series.

Mr Scott said whatever a producer does well today, they can do better tomorrow.

"I think that's a philosophy we can take into everything we do in farming," he said.

"We should always be looking at what we can do differently next year because we know if we just do the same things over and over again, we'll get the same results."

Mr Scott said producers needed to focus on having the best possible management practices in order to decrease their lamb losses.

"Our aim is to control all of the things we can control, that we can influence and limit the impact of the things we can't control," he said.

"If you're not scanning for multiples, you can't possibly manage your sheep to give them the best possible opportunity for lamb survival.

"Unless you scan them and know how many foetuses are on board, they look exactly the same but that's not the reality.

"The requirements of a single ewe versus a twin ewe are so different."

Mr Scott recommended that producers make sure they are confident with ewe condition scoring as there is a direct correlation between a ewe's condition score at lambing and the birth weight of her lambs.

"We've got a range that we're trying to achieve between 4.5kg and 5.5kg," he said.

"If we're under 4.5kg the risk of death due to exposure goes through the roof and if we're above 5.5kg and particularly above 6kg the risk of dystocia goes through the roof."

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Mr Scott said at lambing time producers should focus on the five Ps- pasture, paddock size, privacy, past performance and protection.

He said he believes giving the ewe as much privacy as possible is probably the most underestimated element of lambing.

"We want a minimum of six hours uninterrupted on the birth site and the challenge for that is threefold really," he said. "It's us checking ewe and the potential for disturbance there. If it's a tight season and you're having to feed ewes that absolutely creates some disturbance and moves ewes off their birth site; and then the third one is mob size."

When it comes to limiting mob size, Mr Scott said temporary electric fencing in lambing paddocks was a good solution.

"It's not density, it's simply mob size," he said.

"We won't see a difference between say 10 ewes to the hectare versus five ewes to the hectare but you will see a difference between 150 ewes in a mob versus 70 ewes in a mob.

"What we're actually managing to do with this electric fencing is keep stocking rates right up on our best paddocks but reduce mob size at the same time by splitting those best paddocks up with hot wires. It's not about a particular size of paddock ... it's just about getting mob size as low as we can."