Rural
6 June, 2026
Late lambing lift: not sheepish about water management and weather timing
What difference can timing, feed and water make on a sheep property? At Coojar, Tim Leeming says preparation is helping drive above-average pregnancy scan results.
AUTUMN has always been the time for most sheep farmers in Western Victoria to look to the skies for clouds to form, bringing the first of hopefully consistent rainfall into May.
But on the back of seeing the seasonal breaks arrive later and preparedness to adjust, Paradoo Prime owner Tim Leeming said his own timing had altered with lambing the last couple of years, shifting from late June to mid-July, with his recent results validating his decisions.
Recent pregnancy scans were even showing a very healthy 194 per cent (in lamb) with his ewe lambs from last year, with nutrition control leading to results well exceeding his expectations.
“That's probably 30 per cent higher foetuses per most crossbred flocks across Australia that are three or four years old, (but) they're (only) 10 months old,” Tim said.
“Scanning percentages have been well above average, which is a reflection on how good the spring and quality of feed was in summer.
“The sheep are in fantastic condition, and all the pregnancy scanners around the district will tell you that there's a lot more foetuses in sheep this year than the long-term average.”
This year’s autumn break at his Coojar property arrived “bang on” his 50-year average of the first week of May, missing the extremes of the early-March deluge around Horsham – what he considered a “blessing in disguise” – and he was now enjoying a consistent set of conditions that was well set up for the arrival of the lambs in a few weeks.
“We've had a really nice, clean break at the start of May,” he said.
“Soil temperatures are wonderful – we’ve had very few frosts, so that's kept that soil temperature nice and high. The nights have been really mild.”
Tim said his probes over the last few weeks showed good, still-improving readings for subsoil moisture, but the deeper readings below 50 centimetres still showed evidence of the last two dry years.
“We'll need a reasonably wet winter to get some runoff,” he said.
“I think we're now 75 (to) 80 millimetres for May ... our average May rainfall is about 50.”
Although he was now looking for his dams to begin filling, he did admit there were trade-offs.
“I think everyone loves a mild winter, especially for lambing,” Tim said.
“(One of) the very few upsides of the last couple of years is that we've had beautiful weather during winter; they've been terrific – it’s just we didn’t have any grass!”
He said the dry period “was really tough” but was pleased with how his farm got through it.
“We fed appropriately, and we had ewes that were really fit,” Tim said.
“We were able to keep our ewe mortality in those last couple of years at around one per cent. It was just incredible.
“Sometimes when you get really good seasons, you can actually get complacent, and the ewes get too fat pre-lambing, and then that can cause a number of issues.”
Pointing to significant reticulation work in the last 12 months on a nearby recently acquired property to get better pasture, he said this emphasis was a critical part of his methodology – “we’ve invested a lot in water for decades” – in this case detailing bulldozing several dams to consolidate on two larger ones, and the newly installed pipes evidenced by troughs across the terrain.
He said, along with fertiliser to “get it up and going”, the work would double the about eight to nine dry sheep equivalents the land had been supporting for about 70 years.
“We’ll be running 16 to 17 in this year,” Tim said.
On the subject of meat quality, he said “50 per cent of meat-eating quality is the nutritional path to slaughter” and believed the subject was sometimes overemphasised, with good stock management taking care of the results.
“People still want to buy it; it’s still got to have quality,” Tim said.
Asked what he liked to eat, he grinned and said he loved a good lamb – and did appreciate some intramuscular fat – but had a strong opinion about one detail.
“When you get a fire (and) beautiful steak, and you ask them, ‘How do you like your steak? And they go, ‘Well done.’ – you just feel like punching them!” he laughed.
“Don't destroy this beautiful bit of meat.”