The Ontario lamb industry consists of diverse production systems, breeds and markets. This diversity creates many opportunities but makes it more difficult for producers to determine what production results are “normal” or “good.”
Every flock has lamb mortality. Because there are so many reasons lambs do not survive, it is difficult to determine what changes in a flock could improve lamb survival. Even when post-mortems are done on all dead lambs, the results are often inconclusive. An extensive 1999-2000 health study done in Quebec (Belanger, 2001) found that 68% of the post-mortems conducted on lambs that died in the first 2 days of life were inconclusive.
Here is a link to a factsheet produced by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on Understanding Lamb Mortality.
