Ensure your lambs survive and thrive by optimising ewe nutrition

For a strong, healthy lamb you need a strong, healthy ewe. AHDB’s Senior Animal Health and Welfare Scientist, Dr Lis King, reflects on the importance of reviewing ewe nutrition ahead of the lambing season.

England has seen some of the driest conditions in almost 90 years. Grass yields (kg DM/ha) this year are visibly lower, impacted by the dry weather and lack of soil moisture. Less visible perhaps is the impact on grass quality with the possibility of reduced protein and energy content. Assessing the quality of forage to be fed to pregnant ewes this winter will ensure your lambs survive and thrive and prevent ewes from losing condition.

Key to success at lambing is ewe body condition and the right balance of energy and protein during pregnancy to meet development needs. This are essential for:

• Placental development
• Foetal development, growth and birth weight
• Ewe mammary gland development
• Colostrum quality and quantity
• Lamb survival and immunity to disease
• Ewe mothering ability

Forage analysis

As any nutritionist will tell you, forage analysis is critical to establish whether supplementation is required. The quality of your forage harvest will vary year to year and with each cut. Forage analysis will help support the best outcomes in feed budget decisions and ensure you’re not wasting money on too little or too much supplementary feed. Carry out sampling in late autumn to enable sufficient time to make adjustments. Identifying the best quality forage will enable you to feed the best closest to lambing.

Ewe management

Use forage analysis along-side pregnancy scanning and ewe body condition scores to split ewes into management groups for preferential feeding according to need (e.g. triplet, twin bearing and thin ewes). Ewe lambs and shearlings should be managed separately to mature ewes as they are still growing during pregnancy and will need approximately 20% more feed than mature ewes of the same weight.

Matching demand with feed supply and supplementing as necessary can feel like a daunting task. Seeking advice from your vet or nutritionist will help develop suitable rations for your flock. Getting it right has additional benefits – stronger lambs at birth reduces the need for antibiotic treatments and increases lamb survival.

Key points

• Ensure ewes maintain their target body condition scores throughout pregnancy: 3.0–3.5 for lowland and 2.5 for upland ewes
• Carry out forage analysis – knowing its quality enables appropriate feed rations to be calculated
• Consider asking your vet to take blood samples 3–4 weeks before lambing to assess the adequacy of nutrition in late pregnancy
• Pregnant ewe lambs and shearlings require additional feed and should be fed in a separate group by litter size to mature ewes

For more information, read our manual Feeding the Ewe or Improving Ewe Nutrition.