Yard Weaning Lambs
| Project start date: | 03 January 2013 |
| Project end date: | 30 June 2014 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Sheep, Lamb |
| Relevant regions: | Southern Australia |
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Summary
Yard weaning is used extensively in the cattle industry with an emphasis on influencing animal behaviour. It has also been demonstrated to influence cattle growth rates upon entering an intensive feedlot situation. There is currently very little information available to Australian sheep producers regarding the concept of yard weaning lambs.
This lamb yard weaning Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) was designed to evaluate the impact yard weaning has on post weaning performance (growth rates) and its potential to improve the profitability of sheep breeding enterprises.
The results achieved across the demonstration sites generally showed a statistically significant difference in growth rates in favour of paddock weaning, however there were a large number of factors which contributed to these results. The PDS has illustrated that the weaning process is complex and achieving optimum animal performance can be difficult irrespective of weaning type.
Objectives
The aim of this producer demonstration was to evaluate the impact yard weaning has on post weaning performance (growth rates) and its potential to improve the profitability of sheep breeding enterprises.
Progress
The greatest influence on animal performance, regardless of weaning method was nutrition. While there is nothing new in this finding, it could be concluded that the sheer impact of nutrition pre and post weaning was underestimated by all contributing producers.
Water quality and availability at weaning is also a critical factor both in yard weaning and paddock weaning situations. Trough space in both yard and paddock weaning systems should not be underestimated as it is well documented that dehydration can result in poor animal performance. It is proposed that water trough size be one of the main determining factors that producers use in allocating weaning mob size.
All sites perceived there to be a difference in the behaviour of lambs that were yard weaned. This suggests that there are benefits to be achieved through improved ease of handling animals in the future, especially for self-replacing flocks.
