Identifying helpful management practices to reduce labor, expenses, and stress during lambing and kidding

Identifying helpful management practices to reduce labor, expenses, and stress during lambing and kidding

Summary

Over the course of the project, more than 30 farmers provided detailed information about their management inputs and flock/herd productivity during lambing or kidding. In many cases, farmers provided breeding season information across several years and/or for multiple birthing seasons within a year. Methods to make lambing or kidding management more efficient without compromising animal health were shared by participating farmers and compiled into a power point presentation accompanied by a series of hands-on activities.

Information on low input lambing and kidding practices was disseminated in a combination of 19 presentations, workshops and field days to approximately 482 attendees. Two presentations are still planned for the NOFA-NY Winter Conference (Low input Lambing and Kidding) and The Winter Green-Up Conference (Pasture Lambing and Kidding) in January 2013. Two field days on “Managing Kidding and Lambing More Efficiently” sponsored by Penn State Cooperative Extension and Cornell Cooperative Extension are scheduled in February 2013.

A three part on-line handbook on Low Input Lambing and Kidding: “Managing Lambing and Kidding Efficiently without Sacrificing Animal Well Being” was developed in 2012. We anticipate further edits to it based on future farmer feedback. Additionally, there are still some supporting videos and educational pictures that need to be incorporated into the handbook.

The impact of the project’s activities on the productivity and profitability of participating on-farm study farms or on workshop participants will be measured throughout the winter and spring of 2013. Data entry from the on-farm studies will be completed and analyzed statistically during that time.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Performance Target #1 - Twenty of 30 farmers participating in in-depth record keeping and interviews about their lambing/kidding seasons will identify and successfully adopt birthing management changes that result in total savings of $60,000 due to reductions in labor and/or feed expenses without reducing reproduction or growth rate.

Performance Target #2 - Of 300 meat goat and sheep farmers who attend regional workshops on birth management practices, 200 farmers will agree to have us contact them to track changes in their birthing systems for the following year, and 150 of these will make birth management changes resulting in 100 farmers reporting improved quality of life and monetary savings totaling $75,000 within the next two years.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Spring/Summer 2010 – 2000: farmers receive by mail notice about the project and baseline questionnaires for the 2010 kidding and lambing seasons. 150 farmers return questionnaires. (216 farmers returned usable questionnaires)

Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall 2010: 15 case study farmers keep detailed records of kidding or lambing seasons and provid input on effects of changes they are implementing and farm protocols they suggest should be video-taped or described in writing to share with other farmers. (24 case study farmers participated)

Summer/Fall 2010: ?60 farmers participate in 3 regional workshops on birth management systems, fill out “before” questionnaires, and are asked for permission to follow up with them. Some farmers that plan to initiate changes in their birth management practices are selected to be case study farms for the 2011 birth management seasons. (188 farmers and educators participated in 8 regional presentations, workshops or field days on low input lambing and kidding practices)

Summer/Fall 2010: ?100 farmers gain access to the initial fact sheets and video streams on reduced input management practices for kidding or lambing seasons, and provide feedback. (No fact sheets were created. However, approximately 188 farmers and educators did have access to the video streams during our workshops.)

Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall 2011: 15 case study farms keep detailed records for kidding or lambing seasons and provide input on effects of changes implemented and farm protocols they suggest should be video-taped or described in writing to share with other farmers. (24 case study farmers participated)

Summer/Fall 2011: ?60 farmers participate in 3 regional workshops on management systems, fill out “before” questionnaires, and are asked for permission to follow up with them. Some are selected as case study farms. (59 farmers and educators participated in 4 regional workshops or field days)

Summer/Fall 2011: ?100 farmers gain access to more video streams on lambing or kidding systems that improve efficiency and to a first draft of a “best practices” manual on transitioning to less intensive systems. Farmers provide feedback on what is helpful and what is not. (The manual was not completed until December 2012.)

2012: 15 case study farms kept detailed records for kidding or lambing seasons and provided input on effects of change.

2012: 188 farmers and educators participated in 6 regional presentations, workshops or field days on lambing and kidding management systems and 153 provided contact information and gave permission to follow up with them on whether they adopted any changes to their management system and, if so, what the impact of these changes were.

2012: The 216 responses to the baseline questionnaire were summarized and analyzed.

2012: 30 case study farms provide follow-up information on the effects of birth management changes on herd or flock productivity, labor inputs, feed costs, and stress. Past workshop attendees participate in “after” questionnaires/phone interviews on the impact of the project. (This milestone will occur from Jan – May 2013.)

2012: ?100 farmers access final versions of a birth management system curriculum and written and visual resources on transitioning to less intensive lambing/kidding systems and use these resources to make changes in their systems. (An on-line handbook was completed in December 2012. Usage and feedback about this handbook will be collected from Jan – May 2013.)

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

During 2012 a handbook on “Low Input Lambing and Kidding: Managing Lambing and Kidding Efficiently without Sacrificing Animal Well Being” was developed for on-line presentation. It is in 3 parts with numerous subsections. Each part opens with a set of specific objectives and is followed by suggested farmer activities. Part 1 is a general overview of the relationships between management inputs at birthing, season of birthing, mortality rates and herd performance. Part 2 discusses specific management practices as they relate to lowering inputs for barn lambing and kidding but is applicable in many cases to pasture birthing. Part 3 centers on management considerations to lower inputs during pasture birthing while still insuring good animal welfare. We are still linking our videos and photographs to the handbook. The handbook is at http://ansci.cornell.edu/goats/lowinput_birthing.pdf.

We did a much better job of retrieving contact information from participants in the low input lambing and kidding field days and workshops in 2012 than in either 2010 or 2011. In many cases the extension staff whose organization sponsored each event helped ensure that willing participants provided follow-up contact information. The extension staff was excellent about following through on this task.

We found that regardless of how the workshops and field days were advertised, people with a wide range of goat and sheep rearing experience attended. Because of this we started to include short hands-on activities such as handling dystocia or tube feeding newborns. Experienced livestock farmers were asked to advise less experienced farmers in these activities. The activities were not only good educational exercises for beginners but served as excellent ice breakers for discussions on various ways to manage time during lambing or kidding season. This did compete for time with other interactive activities, which included farmers dividing into pairs or small groups to discuss their animal flow (for example, from birthing groups to individual claiming pens to mixing pens to larger groups) and what they considered to be possible solutions to the most serious birthing management problems.

Evaluations for the workshops and field days generally ranged from Very Good (4) to Excellent (5) on a score of 1 to 5 with the majority of farmer attendees indicating that they intended to reevaluate their systems and/or adopt a new practice. Recommendations for workshop improvement tended to focus on changing the order of the activities to make them more meaningful or suggestions on time management to allow for more in-depth discussions. Other suggestions centered on providing for more audience involvement with respect to future networking to allow for sharing contact information and details about their types of farms. In many cases, particularly field days, name tags were not provided which would have been very helpful for all.

The impact of the project’s activities on the productivity and profitability of participating on-farm study farms or on workshop participants has not yet been measured nor has information from the on-farm studies been statistically analyzed. Our Spring 2013 work study student has both data analysis and surveying experience. She will be asking workshop participants and the farmers who participated in our on-farm studies to complete an on-line survey to measure the impact that the workshops and/or studies had on labor and feed inputs and on flock/herd productivity. She will follow up with phone interviews with non-respondents and with participants who indicate they prefer a phone interview. Dr. tatiana Stanton will complete and summarize the data analysis and write a final report.