Managing sheep body condition through winter is critical for ewe welfare, lamb survival rates, and reproductive success in the following spring.
Winter nutrition management in sheep is a welfare issue with cascading consequences. A ewe entering winter in poor body condition faces months of nutritional stress that affects her immune function, making her more susceptible to disease, her developing lambs, whose birth weight and survival are directly linked to maternal nutrition, and her own physical welfare through the lambing period. Nutritional welfare failures in autumn and winter manifest as welfare emergencies in late winter and spring: hypothermic lambs, ewes with insufficient milk, difficult births, and high lamb mortality. Regular body condition scoring throughout the year and timely supplementary feeding interventions prevent these welfare outcomes at a fraction of the cost and welfare harm of remedial action.