Lamb to lift profits

Lamb at the right time to lift profits

The most effective way to increase productivity and profitability in sheep enterprises is to lift stocking rates. Most enterprises in southern Australia only have 20% to 40% of pasture produced eaten; optimally this should be in the region of 50%.

A recent report by Lisa Warn, Mackinnon Project, School of Veterinary Science, University of Melbourne, in conjunction with the Australian Sheep Industry Cooperative Research Centre, found that selecting the optimum time for lambing enables producers to optimise pasture use and lift stocking rates. And stocking rates are the key to maximising wool and meat per hectare to lift profits.

“The first most critical step in optimising pasture use is to ensure that the period of greatest feed demand by your sheep is aligned to the period of greatest pasture growth,” Lisa Warn explained. “This means lambing should occur prior to the peak pasture growth, allowing ewe numbers to be optimised and supplemental feeding minimised.

“Many people have moved to late winter or spring lambings but there is potential to lift gross margins even further. The accepted wisdom in self-replacing merino flocks is to lamb four months before the end of the growing season, but the research shows that the greatest gains will come if lambing occurs three months before.

“There is still a lot of value for enterprises making incremental changes. Often people are looking for the big hit, but careful monitoring and finetuning will deliver definite improvements in profitability,” Lisa Warn said.

“We looked at 35 years of climate data – and even in drought, with higher weaner feeding costs, the overall returns were better than for earlier lambing. Risk management is critical, particularly in drought. Farmers who develop critical dates and assess their needs before their feed is too depleted are far more likely to gain the best outcomes,” she said.

One of the key risks to address is weaner management. Some key tips for weaner management include:

Wean 12 to 13 weeks after the start of lambing.
Select paddocks for weaning that have a low worm risk and good quality pasture (4 to 6 cm pasture lengths with 30% to 40% clovers).
Prepare additional paddocks with low worm contamination for the following winter.
Ensure lambs reach the critical weaning weight of 45% of mature weight (e.g. 22 kg if mature sheep are 50 kg).
Monitor weaner numbers and weights every four weeks; feed supplements if necessary to ensure weaners grow at more than 1 kg per month.

“Recent research by Angus Campbell at the Mackinnon Project indicates that in terms of weaner outcomes, it is the weight gain per month that is more critical than the weaning weight,” Lisa Warn said.

The research shows that in southern Australia, depending on the length of the growing season, optimum lambing times are:

Flock	Number of months before the end of the growing season to start lambing
(a) Self-replacing merino flocks producing merino lambs as replacements and selling surplus young sheep at 12 months or older.	3 months
(b) Merino flocks producing 12-month-old merino sheep for slaughter.	3 months
(c) Flocks producing merino or crossbred lambs for sale between the ages of 4 and 6 months.	4 months for light trade or store lambs 5 months for heavier lambs (supplementary feeding may be required)

Optimising the amount of meat and wool produced per hectare, while minimising feed costs, is what drives income and profit; it is not about receiving the highest price per kilogram or producing the heaviest lambs. There is no financial benefit in lambing earlier to produce heavier lambs. The costs are either a reduction in potential stocking rate or an increase in supplements fed to ewes if stocking rates are to be maintained. Either way, gross margins are reduced.

Selecting the right time of lambing allows you to increase stocking rate without increasing the risk of supplementary feeding the ewes. The economic benefit is greatest at higher stocking rates.