11 Dec 2020
Ruminant Health and Welfare group wants vets or advisors to work with sheep producers to focus on key areas of improvement.
Vet Times
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Image © Uschi Dugulin / Pixabay
Sheep farmers should make better use of flock performance data to work with vets and advisors on making improvements.
According to Nigel Miller, who chairs the new Ruminant Health and Welfare (RH&W) group, producers naturally collate information about their flocks and needed to ensure it was properly analysed so focus could be put on key areas to improve.
Speaking at the Sheep Health and Welfare Group Conference, Mr Miller said: “On-farm recording can provoke an immediate management response, but then is often sidelined in a file. Perhaps there is real value in pulling back that key data, and making time to review performance strengths and weaknesses.”
He suggested looking at the full spread of KPIs and then focusing on one area to improve. He added: “Often that will have a knock-on effect to other KPIs, too. And if you have a particular goal it’s easier for an advisor to help you. Having a good advisor can be a real game changer.”
A useful stage to measure is the loss between scanning percentages and lambs sold, Mr Miller said. Targeting the lambing rate to the system can reduce attrition between scanning and weaning; those who are outdoor lambing in the hills will opt for easy-care genetics while lowland producers may push for higher prolificacy.
However, evidence shows lamb mortality rises where scanning rates are above 170% – in these systems managers will need targeted nutrition and lambing support to achieve good rearing figures.
Ewe nutrition is also key, as thin ewes will have smaller, weaker lambs, lower quality colostrum and compromised mothering ability.
An encouraging 48% of producers polled said they score body condition at scanning, with 15% also sharing that information with their vet or advisor.
