Lambing 2022

Easy-care is a word that is constantly spoken by Wiltshire breeders all over the country and this year the studs truly lived up to this praise. Going into August with a breeding flock of 203 the girls would finish the lambing period with only 1 death, 3 assisted births and a total lamb mortality % of a mere 12% (compared to last years 20%). This left me very unemployed apart from the daily exercise of chasing down newly born lambs for tagging and watching the grass grow (which it didn’t for a very long time). Although it is a constant obligation during the stud lambing period, God forbid you let a lamb obtain 2 days of speed, tagging allows me a more thorough inspection of the mob and is teaching me the subtle differences between individuals. At the moment we are tagging the studs with Shearwell EID tags which are a small sized option of identification, reducing ear flop. The tag and ear receives a spritz of iodine based formula before application in order to disinfect the site and prevent tags from twisting.

Overall the studs performed better this season than the previous one. Dry ewes decreased from 10% to 8% (possibly due to a more streamlined mating than Mating 2021). However the most encouraging figure to come out of the data was the lambing percentage, increasing from 129% to 143% (lambs at end of lambing to ewes mated). This was extremely visible during the first 2 weeks of lambing via the amount of multiples and lack of singles. Ewes were also retaining their triplets well, even throughout the cold weather that hit late August.

Below are are copy of the raw lambing sheets for 2022.