Hogget Mating - Feed Planning
/By this point most of you would have made the decision on whether or not to go ahead with mating your hoggets. Managed well, hogget mating has the potential to boost your flock’s overall productivity and profitability, but poorly done and it will have the opposite effect. Reaching target liveweights before and after mating is the key to successfully mating your hoggets. The heavier she is at mating, the less pressure there is on your winter feed, to reach target weights after lambing:
40kg/65% of mature LW is the minimum target for each animal at mating, not the mob average – this may mean only a proportion of your ewe lambs are mated in a particular year.
Target growth rate during pregnancy: 135g/d, to gain at least 20 kg and reach a minimum of 60kg before lambing – 50kg straight after they’ve had the lamb.
Hogget lambs may need to be weaned early so that mums reach targets of at least 60kg mated as 2-tooths.
To meet these feed requirements during pregnancy, decent pre-grazing covers of at least 1200kg DM/ha will be necessary, or forage crops can help achieve this. If feed is short reducing other stock numbers is worth considering – the extra feed required to feed 7 in-lamb hoggets (vs 7 dry hoggets) is roughly the same feed required by one pregnant mixed age ewe over winter – an efficient use of resources. Post-lambing legume-based forages consistently give the highest growth rates in both lactating hoggets and their lambs.
What about feeding lucerne before & during mating?
Phyto-estrogens found in red clover, subterranean clover and lucerne are known to cause issues with fertility and reproduction, and hoggets are more sensitive to the depression in ovulation than ewes. However, many farmers successfully flush and mate their ewes on lucerne with no issues, and in most cases the advantages of the high-quality feed will outweigh any potential decrease in fertility. Some precautions to take:
Oestrogen levels are elevated when the crop is stressed e.g. from aphid attack, leaf spots, moisture stress, or fungal disease (warm, wet weather).
If there is any risk that oestrogen levels in the lucerne may be elevated, ewe and hoggets can be flushed on lucerne but should be removed 2 weeks before mating and mated on pasture.
If you have the option, flushing on lucerne, removing 2 weeks before mating then returning to the crop after mating is the safest scenario.
It’s not foolproof, but if ewe lambs develop pronounced udders or elongated teats after grazing lucerne, take that as a sign oestrogenic compounds are being produced and the crop is not safe.
