Additive Impacts of Liveweight and Body Condition Score at Breeding on the Reproductive Performance of Merino and Non-Merino Ewe Lambs

Abstract

Ewe lambs that are heavier due to improved nutrition pre- and post-weaning achieve puberty at a younger age, are more fertile, and have a higher reproductive rate. Fatness is intimately linked to reproduction, and we hypothesised that higher body condition scores at breeding would have positive effects on the reproductive rate of ewe lambs over and above liveweight. We also expected that if only a proportion of ewe lambs were presented for breeding, then it would be more effective to select them based on both liveweight and body condition score. To test these hypotheses, we analysed data from over 17,000 records from Merino and non-Merino ewe lambs from 22 different flocks across Australia. Non-Merino ewe lambs were more fertile (69.4% vs. 48.7%) and achieved a higher reproductive rate than Merino ewe lambs (96.9% vs. 60.7%). There were significant curvilinear relationships between liveweight (p < 0.001) or body condition score (p < 0.001) prior to breeding and reproductive rate for both Merino and non-Merino ewe lambs. For both breeds, there was a significant (p < 0.001) quadratic effect of body condition score prior to breeding on reproductive rate, independent of the correlated changes in liveweight, and at the same liveweight, an extra 0.5 of a body condition score up to 3.3 improved reproductive rate by about 20%. Nevertheless, the results indicated that if only a proportion of ewe lambs were selected for breeding, then selection based on both liveweight and body condition scores may only improve the overall reproductive rate by 1 to 2% compared to selection based on liveweight alone. We conclude that liveweight is a more effective method than body condition score for selecting ewe lambs for breeding.