Richard, Alastair and Charlie de Fegely. Image: Shan Goodwin, ACM
The de Fegely family has been breeding ewe lambs for almost 15 years, but the practice has not been without its challenges.
The family, who participated in the MLA-supported 'More lambs from ewe lambs' research (see story previous page), spent the past year changing their breeding processes – and the results have been pleasing.
They deliver 700 lambs to Thomas Foods International each week, so having efficient and effective breeding systems in place for their self-replacing flock is essential.
After years of poor lambing results in ewe lambs, Charlie de Fegely said they thought they could only achieve success with a genetic breakthrough.
"We've had some really unsuccessful breeding results in past seasons, which has been extremely disappointing," Charlie said.
While they saw more success with mature ewes, their ewe lambs were delivering survival rates of around 60% for twins and up to 85% for singles.
Making changes
This year, after implementing practices from the research project, the outlook is looking much sunnier.
Charlie's son, Richard, runs the operation alongside his parents, and was eager for the property to be part of the research.
"Joining ewe lambs is a space we can do a lot better in, not only in our business, but across the industry," Richard said.
During their one-year involvement in the project, they used electronic identification (eID) to record ewe lamb weights from joining and throughout the pregnancy.
They also condition scored ewe lambs – while this requires a considerable investment of time to add into the breeding process, Richard said it was a worthwhile practice which they'll implement in seasons to come.
"It's going to be an important tool for dealing with dry conditions as well. It's just a few more levers you can pull if you do go through a tough winter leading up to lambing," Richard said.
"If they're a little bit heavy, you've got more options."
Charlie said having minimum joining weights to refer to during joining and pregnancy – with research finding 45kg to be the minimum – also had a significant impact on reproductive success.
"In previous years, the ewe lambs have been a minimum of 38kg when joining, and it was an absolute disaster. This season, they've been a minimum of 48kg before the ram has been brought in," Charlie said.
"At lambing this year, our ewe lambs have been around 60kg, whereas in other years we've been lucky to get them to 50kg."
A busy day lamb marking
It was only at lamb marking, once the count had been done, that the de Fegelys could truly consider the changes a success.
While any true results won't be measured until the systems have been in place for a few years, the season delivered a significant increase in lambs from ewe lambs, achieving a lambing percentage of 138%.
Next year, the de Fegelys will continue the new processes, including a minimum joining target of 50kg, and paddock assessments to ensure both mobs and paddocks are at the optimum size.
"Given it's the first year we've done it, it's inconclusive, but the results have been outstanding, it's definitely made a difference," Charlie said
Seasonal action plan
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