Lambing season is the most welfare-intensive period in sheep farming. Good stockperson skills, adequate supervision, and prompt intervention significantly reduce lamb and ewe mortality.
Lambing creates intense welfare demands on both animals and stockpeople. Ewes in dystocia experience prolonged pain and exhaustion; unassisted difficult births can result in lamb hypoxia and maternal uterine damage. Hypothermic lambs require rapid intervention — warming and colostrum provision — that reverses a welfare emergency developing over minutes. The stockperson is the primary welfare safeguard during lambing, and their skill, vigilance, and physical capacity to maintain adequate supervision determines welfare outcomes at the flock level. Systems that reduce the monitoring burden — indoor lambing with good lighting and technology — enable better welfare oversight than extensive outdoor systems where late-night checks are physically demanding and coverage gaps arise.