Maintaining adequate body condition through winter is critical for sheep welfare. Underfeeding during pregnancy causes welfare problems for ewes and reduces lamb viability and survival.
Winter nutrition management is one of the most important welfare interventions on a sheep farm. Ewes entering pregnancy in poor body condition have insufficient reserves to support rapid foetal growth in late gestation. The result is metabolic breakdown — pregnancy toxaemia — that causes lethargy, recumbency, and death in affected ewes, and small, weak lambs with poor suckling ability and low survival rates. Preventing this requires body condition scoring at key intervals, feeding pregnant ewes to condition, and ensuring forage quality meets nutritional targets. Many welfare problems in lambing arise from nutritional decisions made 3-4 months earlier. Investment in feeding management and forage testing has high welfare and productivity returns.