This week on the Head Shepherd podcast we have Anne Ridler chatting to Mark about Ewe wastage and checking udders post-weaning.

Anne Ridler is an associate professor at Massey University specialising in sheep and beef. Anne has been in her current role for 11 years and prior to that was a practicing vet.

One of Annes recent research projects involved checking udders on ewes. The project came about from Annes interest in Ewe wastage. Most farmers will cull on poor udders but Anne found that most farmers checked and assessed them all very differently, resulting in different levels of culling.

She found that in ewes with bad udders, their lambs would be 3/4 times more likely to die. (Bad udders being lumps or hardness in the udder)

Between 2 and 8% of ewes have "dodgy" udders post lambing, and the best time to check is 4-6 weeks post weaning so you can actually see the defects.

Annes goal was to have a more standardised way of checking udders and culling on them.

Annes interest in ewe wastage led her to conduct a trial following 13,000 ewe hoggets and followed them until they were 6y/o monitoring the causes of death over their lifetimes. Only 10% made it to 6 years old.

This podcast is full of facts and figures and handy hints for sheep farmers around checking udders, reducing lamb losses and ewe wastage. Anne has a lifetime of knowledge to share and with Mark asking the questions, it's definitely not a podcast to miss!

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