Lifetimewool provides practical guidelines for the nutritional management of the breeding ewe. These guidelines will improve ewe wool cut and survival, lambing percentage and the productive performance of her offspring, resulting in substantial increases in profitability.

Optimising the wool production system to maximise profitability is a balancing act between many factors. The breeding ewe plays a pivotal role in the system. The management of ewe nutrition has a major impact on the whole systems' performance, through its effects on her wool production and quality, parasite burdens, conception rates, lamb birth weight and survival and importantly the lifetime performance of her progeny.

Lifetimewool is a research and extension project that will develop, demonstrate and communicate practical guidelines that allow allocation of feed resources to breeding ewes to optimise their wool production (quality & quantity) and the lifetime performance of their progeny.

Key messages

• By optimising nutrition during pregnancy, positive impacts arise - progeny from better fed ewes produce more wool which is finer throughout their lives.

Managing the nutrition of breeding ewes to meet condition score targets at critical stages of the reproductive cycle has benefits on the overall performance of the merino flock e.g. increased conception rates, lower worm burdens in pregnant ewes, reduced ewe mortality during pregnancy, increased survival of progeny, particularly twins, higher progeny growth rates, enhanced wool production and quality of the ewe, improved progeny wool production and quality and increased progeny resistance to internal worms.

• By managing ewes during the breeding cycle to condition score and Feed-on-Offer (FOO) targets, positive affects on whole farm profit can result.

Preliminary economic modelling suggest that managing breeding ewe nutrition to targeted condition scores at key times during the reproductive cycle can increase whole farm profit potentially  by more that $5 per ewe per year. The modelling also suggested that the effects on the lifetimewool production of the progeny accounted for more than 80% of the increase in profit from managing ewes to condition score targets during pregnancy.

The project will deliver for woolgrowers:

• Best-bet management guidelines for managing ewe nutrition to optimise wool production and quality
• Competency based training program for woolgrowers delivered by RIST.
• A series of simple and advanced decision support tools to assist woolgrowers implement the Lifetime Wool principles on-farm.
• A Lifetime Wool handbook outlining project recommendations in a clear, concise form.
• A Consultants Resource kit - to enable consultants and extension officers to deliver messages and recommended practices to woolgrowers.
• Website for up-to-date information from the project.

For more information visit www.lifetimewool.com.au