lambing losses/percentages

galway 4 sam

Well,

lambing is finished on my farm for another year with the exception of one straggler who was scanned as being late anyways. What kind of percentages did ye achieve? What kind of losses did ye have. Personally we managed a ratio of 1.666 lambs to ewes. Our lamb mortality was unfortunately quite high at 16%. Just curious what the average was and what kinda losses people were getting just to see if our 16% was very high or anywhere near typical!!!

Username John

I am only a novice to farming, so take my figures with a pinch of salt. But I'll put em up for comparison...

This year was a disaster for us 20% losses... (lost 20 out of scanned 97 lambs)

Last year was much better - 8% losses (lost 5 from scan of 63)

I think under 10% is ok, but it all depends on numbers. With small numbers, losing one or two lambs can be a big % increase. What number does the 16% represent?

What was the main cause of losses?

This year, there was probably 4 - 5 where *I think* I could have done more... maybe... The others I couldn't do anything for... But its those 4 or 5 that annoy me... :mad:

Cran

16% seems high, at 1.666 guess your scanning near 2. I would take a weaning rate of 1.666 for a scan of 2 but not just after lambing....Think I was close to about 10% last year at lambing and the weather was poor enough previous years were lower...

what were the main causes thats what I would look at?

Dickie10

well lads just looking for solace on this thread i had a super lambing last year and waneing percentage. lost 8 lambs out of 152 scanned, not sure whhat percentage that is. so depressed today howver here in college, the eyes stinging with tiredness! im in middle of lambing and currently on a lamb mortality of 6 lambs out of a scan of 122 in 67 ewes. i have 30 to lamb, but im trying to deal with a bad scour outbreak in shed. lost 4 lambs to this so far.

ganmo

8/152 = about 5%
6/122 = about 5%
remember counting one year and coming up with 7% most lads don't count

Dickie10

im thinking of not counting either this year im at 7 today the scour got me bad. iv a learned a lot of hygene lessons

rangler1

5% - 10% from scanning to weaning is what you should be aiming for