Warning on risk to lambing of over-fed ewes in mild weather

The mild weather now sweeping over the country may seem a blessing to livestock farmers, comparing it with snow-clad scenes from 12 months ago, but the much warmer than normal temperatures could also bring problems.

“Sheep farmers should be checking their pregnant ewes,” said Scottish Agricultural College sheep specialist Dr John Vipond. “When the temperature is in the upper teens, as it is now, the grass starts to grow very quickly. Then sheep become over-fat.

“Unless farmers do something now to deal with fat sheep there could be big problems ahead.”

In recent weeks, he said that he had seen a large number of flocks where the ewes were already in too good condition because of the mild winter and this might lead to losses at lambing time.

The problem is not uniform across the UK but it was reasonably widespread, he said. Most ewes in the eastern side of the country were already on the over-fat range as were a number of flocks in the upland areas.

However, the sheep in the wetter north and west were in fitter condition, carrying less in the way of fat.

The problem of over-fat ewes will emerge as they come into lambing with more problems of prolapses due to them carrying too much internal fat. There would also be problems with difficult lambings, he predicted.

There were also potential problems with over-fat sheep rolling over on their backs and not being able to get back on to their feet.

Both of these could be major problem areas if the issue was not tackled now. He referred to a survey on lamb losses in Wales last year where some 12 per cent of the potential lamb numbers had been lost. “That was supposed to be a good year so it could be worse this coming lambing,” he said.

He advised shepherds to carry out condition scoring on their ewes to check how their sheep were. SAC had recently issued a booklet on this aspect of husbandry.

If sheep were over-fat and they were kept inside, then control on the amount of food could reduce future problems.

For those sheep outside, he advised extra exercise with even something as simple as making the sheep walk further to get their forage.

He also advised farmers to concentrate on the level of digestible undegradable protein (DUP) in the feed.

Sheep farmers coping with over-fat ewes should look at incorporating 100gms of soya per lamb carried per day. This was high in DUP and it was also good in providing vigour to the lamb