‘Lifetime Wool’ is a national project funded by Australian Wool Innovation to develop profitable ewe management guidelines for woolgrowers across Australia. Most research on the effects of nutritional management of ewes has concentrated on the impacts on the dam herself, and lamb birth weights and survival. New opportunities for developing optimum ewe management systems, based on achieving liveweight and body condition score targets at critical stages of the reproductive cycle, have emerged from the acceptance that nutrition during pregnancy can also have substantial impacts on the lifetime performance of the progeny. There is evidence that progeny from better fed ewes will produce more wool and finer wool throughout their lives (Kelly et al. 1996). Other progeny traits, such as reproductive performance, body composition and susceptibility to disease and stress (Cronje 2003), are also influenced by maternal diet, but their importance has received little attention.
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