Lambing
The wool industry practises winter lambing and selective breeding in order to increase profits, resulting in a high rate of animal suffering. Every year in the Australian lambing season, 10 to 15 million newborn lambs die in the first 48 hours of their lives due to exposure (hypothermia), starvation and neglect. Many mother ewes die each season too, their bodies struggling to withstand the stress of unnatural multiple births.
Please note, this section contains graphic images and may be confronting.
Winter lambing
The wool and meat industry practices winter lambing in order to produce the most lambs for the lowest cost. Sheep are impregnated to give birth in winter so that pastures are most fertile when their lambs are weaned in spring, allowing surviving lambs to grow fatter faster. This method of breeding reduces feed costs.
Newborn lambs are tiny and unable to regulate their temperature. In the freezing cold winter, and without sufficient shelter to protect them from rain and wind (as is often denied to them), hypothermia is common.
Selective breeding: lambs
Farmed sheep have been selectively bred for many years, so that they regularly give birth to twins and triplets. This is because more lambs means more profit. However, multiple-birth pregnancies result in smaller and weaker lambs being born, and so more lambs dying.
As well as being at much higher risk of dying from hypothermia, smaller lambs are often rejected by their mother in favour of the strongest baby in hopes they may survive – an already tough battle for many winter lambs.
Selective breeding: ewes
Mother sheep selectively bred to bear twins or triplets are more likely to die if in poor condition. These ewes are also more likely to prolapse and become downed, making them more susceptible to predation.
When mother sheep die orphaned lambs are left to starve or be preyed on. Industry codes of practice support clubbing such lambs to death if farmers are not willing to take them in.
Additionally, ewes who are ‘under-performing’ during lambing season, are often slaughtered to ‘increase the lamp crop’.
This sheep was found alive and breathing, unable to get up, at the very beginning of the cold season. Her eyes had been pecked at and she showed signs of a troubled birth. Image: Emma Hakansson
Lambing deaths and predation
Winter lambing practices and selective breeding result in high rates of lamb death. A high rate of just below 30% of merino lambs dying is considered acceptable by the wool industry. The national average flock size is 1,730 sheep and lambs, so that’s about 519 dead lambs.
When so many dead bodies litter farms, foxes, crows and other predators are more likely to be lured near the flock. This puts weak and downed lambs and sheep in danger of being preyed on while alive. A very small number of lambs actually die due to predation rather than mismanagement, neglect and selective breeding issues.
Image: Emma Hakansson
References
Every year in the Australian lambing season, 10 to 15 million newborn lambs die…
The Australian, ABC 1 and 2
The wool and meat industry practices winter lambing in order to produce the most lambs for the lowest cost…
Agriculture Western Australia
The wool industry encourages merino sheep farmers to aim for only 70% of lambs surviving
Making More From Sheep by Australian Wool Innovation & Meat and Livestock Australia
The national average flock size is 1,730 sheep and lambs
Meat and Livestock Australia
Farmed sheep have been selectively bred for many years, so that they regularly give birth to twins and triplets.
CSIRO
…multiple birth pregnancies result in smaller and weaker lambs being born, and so more lambs dying.
Agriculture Western Australia, CSIRO, New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research
Smaller lambs are at much higher risk of dying from hypothermia
Making More From Sheep by Australian Wool Innovation & Meat and Livestock Australia
Mother sheep bearing twins or triplets are more likely to die…
Agriculture Western Australia
…These ewes are also more likely to prolapse
US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
Industry codes of practice support clubbing such lambs to death…
Agriculture Victoria
…ewes who are ‘underperforming’ during lambing season, including by rearing only one lamb, are often slaughtered…
Ag Update