Animal Health & Welfare

The breed can affect her choice of birth site, the amount of time she spends on the birth site, how much licking and bleating she makes to the lamb, how likely a lamb is to be rejected or abandoned (usually only in first time mothers), how readily she lets the lamb suck, how quickly she moves to find the lamb when they are separated, how close the ewe and lamb are together at pasture and how she responds when her lambs are handled.

It is likely that maternal behaviour can be improved by genetic selection for ewes that lick the lamb rapidly after birth and willingly accept the lamb at the udder, and against ewes that show lamb rejection or abandonment. Most ewes are poorer mothers at first lambing than in subsequent years. Although all ewes will improve with experience, usually ewes that do worst as first time mothers will also be the poorer ewes in later years.

Research in Australia that selected for ewe temperament found that calm ewes had better lamb survival than the offspring of nervous ewes. Although this work has not been performed on British breeds of sheep, tests of ewe temperament (the Maternal Behaviour Score) show that ewes that do not run away when their lambs are handled have better lamb survival than ewes which leave their lambs when they are caught and tagged.