Fertility for Merino sheep in pastoral regions

Addressing the 2022 MerinoLink Conference in Wagga Wagga, Mrs Lugsdin said the average lambing rates on Warrendale have been anywhere from 50pc to 75pc.

"During the 2017-2019 drought lambing percentages were devastating," she said.

"We lost over 1000 lambs in 2018 through illness due to mulesing. And we only achieved an 11pc scanned in lamb in 2019."

Traditionally Merino ewes have been viewed as having poor fertility and being poor mothers, but Mrs Lugsdin set out to disprove that long held myth.

"I believe that with the right selection pressures, Merino ewes can achieve high lambing and weaning rates and produce an exceptional fleece," she said.

"As a sheep breeder, being enabled with a 'bag full of tools' is moving us forward to achieving these results, and it shows that Merinos can give you a dual income.

"The number of lambs weaned is a huge profit driver for our self replacing Merino enterprise."

The Lugsdins have not mulesed their lambs since 2019 and to ensure their flock has been on an upward trajectory, they use EIDs, ASBVs and genomic flock profiling to meet their breeding objectives. To increase their lambing percentage and ultimately their weaning percentage, they were one of the core participants as a MLA Producer Demonstration Site in the Pregnancy scanning in extensive sheep flocks program.

The three-year program will run from April 2021 to April 2024 and aims to increase the reproduction rate of extensive Merino sheep flocks in Central and Western NSW.

The Warrendale ewes were joined for 6.5 weeks from October 31, 2021 to December 16, 2021, with an average condition score of 3.

They were pregnancy-scanned on January 28, 2022, with 117pc in the trial mob, and 124pc in the trial and control mobs.

"Unexpectedly, the Warrendale scanning results showed that the relationship between scanning rate and condition score at the time of joining was negative," Mrs Lugsdin said.

To investigate the possible reasons, Mrs Lugsdin said the ewes were categorised into three groups - pregnant both years, once dry and twice dry.

"The twice dry ewes had a higher average pre-joining condition score compared to the pre-joining condition score of the ewes that were pregnant both years," she said.

"By removing the proportion of twice dry ewes from the mob, the scanning rate increased from 117pc to 124pc.

"The date set highlights the importance of collecting individual data to identify opportunities to improve flock performance or potential issues within the flock.

"The project has been very good for us."