LAMB DEATHS AT BIRTH

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29378, 3 December 1960, Page 8

LAMB DEATHS AT BIRTH

Losses Due To Starvation

Post-mortem examinations of lambs dying on individual properties tend to show that there are very wide differences in the level of lamb deaths at birth or soon afterwards which can be attributed to starvation. These are lambs which actually breathe and walk, but soon succumb because they have used up all their body energy. On only very rare occasions do they get a drink. In the Ashburton district losses in this category have ranged from as low as 2 per cent, on some farms to as high as 50 per cent, of all lambs dying around about birth. Expressed in another way over the last two years deaths under this heading on a number of properties in the county have ranged from 0.25 per cent, to 5 per cent, of all lambs born. At the higher level this would involve a loSs of 50 lambs in a drop of 1000 simply due to starvation and a financial loss to the farmer at current prices of more than £ 100.

Mr David McFarlane, formerly of the Gisborne Veterinary Club and now professor of veterinary medicine at the Sydney Veterinary School, and others have calculated that some 10 to 15 per cent, of all lambs die at birth or soon afterwards, and as this constitutes a loss of some 3.000,000, of which up to a half may die from starvation, there is obviously room for improvement in the standard of management and shepherding where on similar country subject to similar climatic conditions there are wide variations in these starvation losses. Labour, of course, can be a factor m this situation.