Practically speaking, they mis-mother all single lambs and one lamb from each triplet litter and reallocate them all as twins.
‘Mixing of the lambs is crucial to a successful mothering – we found that if a ewe retained her original single lamb she had a point of contrast and usually rejected the mothered-on lamb.’
“This way every single-bearing ewe offers a survival opportunity to a triplet lamb.”
The process involves picking one lamb from each set of triplets born in the paddock and taking them to the mothering facility set up in the covered yards.
Ewes bearing single lambs are kept close by and are walked to the yards once their lamb is born. Temporary pens set up in the yards are kept warm, dry, and disinfected. Ewes and lambs are recorded, separated, and mixed. Lambs are treated with iodine navel spray and given a shot of antibiotic.
“Mixing of the lambs is crucial to a successful mothering – we found it that if a ewe retained her original single lamb she had a point of contrast and usually rejected the mothered-on lamb,” Andrew said.
The following morning each ewe is checked for udder function and health, allocated two new lambs, and held with them in tight proximity to allow the lambs to feed and adjust.
“The lambs are surprisingly content overnight and the fact that they are hungry the next morning means they are quick to suckle from their new mum.”
Andrew said that a successful transfer typically involved one-and-a-half to two days in the shed, from which time bonds are tested in a yard paddock.
Happy trios are then released to high quality pastures such as red clover.
Veterinarian Martin Walshe was part of the project team and endorsed this process.
Walshe said that having been “restricted from feed during the mothering-on process, the ewes are tired and keen to graze – this allows the young lambs the chance to stick close to their mums and reduces the risk of bonds breaking.”
As a result of the triplet transfer system, the Freemans have gone from witnessing 180% docking in their triplet lambs to achieving 230% docking in the 2013-14 season.
In association with this ewe deaths over lambing have decreased from 11.5% to 3% because of the increased shepherding of the triplet-bearing ewes.
Also, taking advantage of the lamb feeding potential of ewes lambing one lamb but feeding two has produced a consistent ewe efficiency of greater than 0.7kg of lamb weaned for each kilogram of ewe mated.
People power
For the triplet transfer system to run smoothly and successfully a considerable amount of intervention is required over a short period.
The system is far more intensive than traditional lambing management on many NZ sheep farms and it relies heavily on motivated labour units.
“It is the people on the ground that make it happen. We wouldn’t have been successful if it weren’t for the team’s ability to adapt to change,” Andrew Freeman said.
Pulling their weight
Mixing of lambs was crucial to a successful mothering in the triplet transfer system.
In 2011, Andrew and Gretchen Freeman noticed the growing animosity towards triplet lambs among other top farmers.
Instead of following the crowd, they set out to find a way to embrace triplet lambs, improve their survival, and better capture the potential of their breeding ewes.
The key objectives for the project on the Freeman’s 600ha property were to capture the potential being lost because of the poor survival of triplet lambs and a high death rate of triplet bearing ewes.
“Only 60% of scanned triplets were surviving until docking and it appeared that losses usually occurred within the first 10 days of their life,” Freeman said, who with others in the B+LNZ project team, identified the opportunity to improve this by improving feeding.
“The opportunity for extra feed lies in the single ewes via mothering-on and high energy feeding via plantain and clover.”
It was these opportunities that lead to the conception of the triplet transfer system, and after its second successful trial at Ngahere, it is now being touted as viable to test at a commercial scale.
