“Pub Talk”

“I marked 113%”.

That’s impressive! I mean, when I was at school, or uni, 100% was perfection, so 113% must be well beyond that.

But I think when it comes to lamb marking percentages, we need to think of this figure as “pub talk”. (A big thanks to my Lifetime Ewe Management group for coining this phrase)! By all means, tell your mates this, but at home, drill down on what’s really happening to your sheep reproduction. This is where enlightenment, learning, growth and improvement can occur.

Let’s take the farmer who marked 113%.

She joined 1284 ewes. She scanned 602 as twins and 580 as singles. She scanned 102 dry (not pregnant).

You could say her scanning percentage was 165% (if you want more “pub talk” and consider foetuses to ewes scanned in lamb); or 139% if you consider foetuses to ewes joined (more accurate!), but it’s more helpful if we consider that the conception rate was 92% and that there are 1784 potential foetuses.

There is actually no widely accepted target for conception in sheep flocks. Conception is something that you should record and try to improve year on year within your own flock.

At lamb marking, 1152 ewes and 1341 lambs turned up. 

If we consider the number of lambs marked to ewes joined, we get a lamb marking percentage of 104%. It’s not the figure she told her mates in the pub of 113%, which is lambs marked to ewes scanned in lamb, however it’s still thought of as a pretty good result!

But here is where things get real.

Her foetal conversion from scanning to lamb marking was 75%, meaning that a quarter of the lambs conceived didn’t make it to lamb marking.  This is not an atypical result; however, the sheep industry is working towards a 90% lamb survival rate.

Also of note, the ewe mortality rate in this flock was 10%. We don’t know what the typical ewe mortality rate is in merinos, or shedding breeds around the lambing period, however across all breeds the industry mortality rate is 4.9% annually.  So, 10% is quite high and warrants investigation and thought.

We also now need to get these lambs to weaning.

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