Maximizing productivity in Dorper flocks in Australia

Published 2023년 3월 16일

Tridge summary

A group of Dorper producers on SA’s far-west coast participated in a Meat & Livestock Australia-funded Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) project to boost the reproductive performance of their flocks and address declining lambing percentages. The project ran for three years and involved trialling various management practices, including condition scoring of ewes, assessing ram performance, scanning for lamb numbers, and feed budgeting. The practices led to significant improvements in conception and marking rates for one producer, with an increase of nearly 30% and almost 40% respectively. All participating producers adopted or intended to adopt the identified management practices, with a full project report expected to be available on the MLA website soon.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

In an effort to address declining lambing percentages in local flocks, a group of Dorper producers on SA’s far-west coast participated in a Meat & Livestock Australia-funded Producer Demonstration Site (PDS). Throughout the three-year project, the group trialled several management practices to boost the reproductive performance of their flocks. Examples of the practices trialled by participating producers include (but aren’t limited to): condition scoring of ewes at key times in the reproductive cycle (including pre-joining to ensure ewes have had sufficient time to recover from previous lambing), aiming for a score of 4 or above pre-joining assessment of rams scanning for lamb numbers (singles or multiples) differential management strategies of ewes based on pregnancy status assessing udder soundness and monitoring udder health weaning lambs at optimum time feed budgeting. Turbo-charging reproductive performance For White Dorper producer Ben Polkinghorne, implementing the ...

Source: Mla