Shed and Pasture Lambing Programs

Pasture Lambing

With low labour and low cost lambing on pasture is the opposite of the below scenario. However, the trade off is in number of offspring as lambing percentage drops in a pasture program.

Ewes birth during warm weather when they are outdoors, on pasture. Some shepherds provide a lean-to shelter of sorts to ewes who may be out in the open, but otherwise, there is little to no infrastructure involved. Nature provides.

Ewes are monitored daily but are rarely interfered with. Flocks of sheep in a pasture program will have been selected for abilities to do well living on grass and this selection includes ease of birthing.

Birthing happens on its own as most producers who take this approach are comfortable leaving the ewes to manage as they know best. The producer keeps on eye on everyone but only interferes if there is need.

The bulk of the work is moving the group to fresh grass. There is no night time checks or moving pairs into jugs and hardening areas.

On pasture, the young are subject to any bouts of poor weather and natural threats such as sheep predators. Both of these are less of a concern in the other two scenarios.

Shed Lambing

Referred to by this Australian term because ewes birth their young indoors. Birthing often takes place during colder or inclement weather which necessitates the need for the young to be born indoors.

Having ewes birth indoors requires the set up of jugs and hardening areas. The jugs are small pens (typically five feet by five feet) for individual ewes to birth in. Ewes about to birth or with newborns will be ushered into a jug for observation and the sake of bonding and mothering up. Due to ewes being housed indoors or in corrals there is more opportunity for mis-mothering to occur. Once the pair are bonded and the newborns are thriving the pair is moved to a hardening or mixing pen.

The hardening pen is a larger area that may be set up indoors or out depending on the weather conditions. There will be several ewes with their young in the hardening area. Here the ewes and her offspring become acclimatized both to colder conditions and integrating with a group. From the hardening area the groups of pairs will move to a larger space again until eventually the whole group is together.

Having sheep birth indoors seems to be the most common way of management even though it takes intensive labour to make it work. Duties include making sure the ewes about to birth come indoors, monitoring newborns, moving pairs around, feeding and watering everyone, marking the offspring and keeping records.

With a small to medium sheep flock this is workable in its own labour intensive way. With a significant number of animals, juggling animals and space so that there is always available pens is the primary concern.

Animals are also more susceptible to illness if held indoors in crowded conditions too long so there is a balancing act in keeping ewes and newborns in long enough but to too long.

The infrastructure and intense labour required needs to pay off with a high number of lambs, so prolific breeds are often preferred and there is often extensive effort on the part of the shepherd to keep all the offspring alive.

With each scenario there is something to be gained and there is a trade off. The shepherd only needs to decide which program makes the most sense, labour wise and profit wise, to his way of thinking.

Continue with accelerated lambing - an intensive system.

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