Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s recently revised Unlocking the Potential of Hogget Lambing book contains a wealth of practical information for sheep farmers wanting to maximise production in their ewe lambs.
The book was written with input from Paul Kenyon, Professor of Sheep Husbandry and Rene Corner, Associate Professor of Animal Science, both from Massey University’s School of Agriculture and Environment. Members of Southland’s Hogget 150 group also share their collective experience and management advice.
Unlocking the Potential of Hogget Lambing sets the scene by outlining both the advantages and disadvantages of mating ewe lambs and includes an economic analysis of the different hogget and mature ewe weaning rate scenarios.
The advantages of hogget lambing can include more lambs born on the farm, the more efficient use of herbage, increased selection pressure for replacements, an increase in the ewe’s lifetime performance and a reduction in the generation interval when progeny born to ewe hoggets are selected as replacements.
Disadvantages can include increased feed requirements – especially in the first year of the ewe lamb’s life, increased pressure on the farm system, reduced flexibility with another high priority class of stock and an increased workload.
Each subsequent chapter delves into the management of hoggets at each stage of the reproductive cycle from pre-mating management, management over breeding, pregnancy, weaning and post-weaning and the potential long-term impact of hogget breeding.
B+LNZ’s General Manager Farming Excellence Dan Brier says Unlocking the Potential of Hogget Lambing is a practical how-to guide to help sheep farmers maximise their ewe lambs’ reproductive performance over their lifetime.
“As the experiences of the Hogget 150 group have shown, done well, hogget lambing can significantly increase the reproductive performance of those sheep over their lifetime and drive efficiencies in the whole farm system. Done badly, the inverse is true, so it is important farmers wanting to mate their hoggets have their feeding and management strategies in place before they decide to start. And the correct decision may indeed be not to lamb your hoggets.
“Unlocking the Potential of Hogget Lambing steps farmers through the management of ewe lambs through that vital first year so those animals join the main flock as well-grown, productive two-tooths.”
The book is available on-line and in hard copy on request.
“I urge all sheep farmers to read this book, whether they have mated their hoggets this year or are considering incorporating the practice into their farm system in the future. It is a valuable practical and easy-to-read resource.”
First published in 2002 as “100 more: A guide to hogget mating” by Meat & Wool Innovation (MWI) and the MWI Sheep Council, this is the third update of the book. It includes new research on the longer-term impacts of hogget lambing, as well as 20 years of farmer experience with hogget lambing. It includes the influence of higher ewe lamb and ewe mating weights and sheep genetics selected for decades for fecundity and lamb growth.