SUFFOLK breeders were urged to supply more rams as shearlings to meet the demands of commercial producers.

Lesley Stubbings, independent sheep consultant, said many of her large commercial flocks wanted to buy shearlings.

"It's because ram lambs cannot survive the rigours of large tupping groups and life in that environment," she said.

"To regain market share, Suffolk breeders have to supply more rams as shearlings, removing the stigma that they are last year's 'poor doers'."

They should be shearlings which had been grown on, capable of fitting into a management regime that did not rely on large amounts of supplementation.

"Commercial production systems in Great Britain are changing and this will accelerate in the next few years," said Mrs Stubbings. "As breeders, you must look ahead and adapt breeding objectives and rearing methods to meet the changing demands of your customers."

She felt the 40 ewes per ram per season ratio needed to be increased to significantly reduce costs per lamb.

Murray Rohloff, ahe New Zealand sheep producer speaking at the conference, said the active ram life expectancy in his country was 4.3 years, at 150 ewes to one ram.

Dr Cathy Dwyer, animal behaviour specialist with the Scottish Agricultural Colleges, said their studies over 12 years showed pure Suffolk ewes needed a considerable amount of help at lambing.

A third of lambs needed some help at birth and more than a third needed help to suck from their mothers at least once.

"We found that, for 100 live Suffolk lambs, 78 minutes were spent delivering lambs and 28 hours were spent assisting lambs to suck," said Dr Dwyer, "It equates to a labour investment of 17 minutes per live lamb."

The quicker a lamb stood and sucked the more chance it had of survival.

Litter size affected lamb behaviour, with triplets considerably slower to stand, seek the udder and suck. In general, heavier lambs were quicker to stand. Male lambs tended to be slower than ewe lambs, and lambs born after a longer gestation period tended to be quicker to stand and suck than those born after a short gestation.

A pilot study was being carried out by 35 Suffolk breeders and, so far, information on more than 800 ewes and more than 1,000 lambs backed up SAC's own findings.

An application had been made to the Department of Trade and Industry to establish a Knowledge Transfer Partnership so the information collected could be used further afield to provide heritability and estimated breeding values on the animals used.

The aim was to appoint someone this autumn to run a project from the 2007 lambing period to collect data on at least 1,000 ewes and their lambs over three years.

It was expected to result in a validated scoring system, genetic analysis and breeding scheme, training and marketing to publicise and promote the recording and associated benefits.

"The low lamb vigour of the Suffolk lamb is compromising the breed in the current market, where low input systems are increasingly desirable," said Dr Dwyer. "However, it is possible to select for improved lamb vigour by scoring these traits in newborn lambs."

She said the three year project would not only result in estimated breeding values for the animals involved, but also a breeding scheme for the Suffolk Sheep Society to improve lamb vigour.

l Murray Rohloff's speech will appear in next week's paper.