DPI lamb survival research is recruiting NSW sheep producers

The trial is a collaboration between Murdoch University, the University of Western Australia, CSIRO, the DPI and Meat & Livestock Australia.

It is part of a broader shade and shelter project looking at the relationship between heat stress and reproduction success.

DPI research officer Gordon Refshauge said the message that shelter played a big part in lamb survival was not new, but there were still low levels of adoption on farm when it came to building shelter belts.

The WA part of the study compared lamb survival rates in paddocks with shrub cover, versus crops, versus pastures, he said.

But the different climate and landscapes in NSW made it more complicated.

"Now, in NSW, there's not a lot of places where we have shrubs available to provide shelter in our landscapes that are also cold environments and also have crops," Dr Refshauge said.

"My view is that in NSW in particular - but Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia - there's a lot of adoption of forage crops that fill this winter feed gap and they've had an enormous impact on stocking rates and productivity on farm."

He noted not all crops were suitable for lambing and the study aimed to determine which could be used as well as what factors were required to contribute to ewe and lamb survival.

Dr Refshauge said this year's study had two angles, with the first looking at crop height.

This was being measured at a farm west of Cowra that had crops at three different heights at the start of lambing season.

"It's a multi-species crop, so it's got radish and wheat and the ewes are on supplements," Dr Refshauge said.

"There's nine plots out on that farm, there's wind speed meters and each of those measuring rainfall and wind speed, so we'll get a sense for any impact of the crop height on wind speed reduction.

"While we're also collecting temperature and rainfall, we're also being able to calculate the wind chill index.

"We can see if there's any relationship between the crop and the cold conditions and lamb survival in each of these treatments.

"The idea being is the message that rolls out to industry is we can say, a crop height that's this tall... there's an association with lamb survival.

"That's our aspiration. We can't say that's going to happen, but that's what we're trying to get to."

Dr Refshauge said the other aspect of the study was comparing survival rates in crops versus pastures.

That involved monitoring ewes lambing in a producer's best lambing paddock and comparing it to ewes lambing on a mixed crop at the same farm.

"We've got the weather stations in there looking at temperature, rainfall, wind speed, and we'll see what relationships start to emerge by lambing ewes on these safer-to-lamb-on crops, compared to our better lamb and paddocks," he said.

"That's where we're really up to at the moment and we're still looking for co-operators."

Both the crop height comparison study and the lambing comparison studies needed more sites to get involved, he said.

"If anyone's lambing in the Tablelands somewhere that's got multi-species crop that they would just eat out and not send to grain, I'd be very keen to talk to them," he said.

"If they've got twin-bearing ewes, and they'd probably need at least 450."

He said there was some evidence that pointed to increased rates of dystocia in lambs when the mothers had been exposed to cold weather up to two weeks before the lamb was born.

"The idea of protecting the lambing ewes from cold weather actually extends back to those that haven't given birth yet," he said.

Producers interested in taking part can contact Dr Refshauge at gordon.refshauge@dpi.nsw.gov.au or 0439 607 842.