Sheep Managment Plan

Animal management report and plan You will present and interpret data that is meaningful for industry and research and put it into context using published scientific literature. You will write a clear and concise scientific report on animal management supported with appropriate information from the published literature and correct referencing. Your scientific report will be in a conventional structure with introduction, methods, results, and discussion (including a management plan) sections. Instructions – Hobart scenario • Body condition score data has been collected from a mob of maiden merino ewes (2 years old) at the Unifarm in Cambridge on 23rd April 2021 • The ewes had just been mated and are expected to commence lambing in late August 2021. • The objective of this enterprise is to produce superfine merino wool and lamb. • This enterprise has a production target of > 100% lambing success. The resources that are available on farm include: • Pasture resources with good Autumn growth • Irrigated Lucerne • Native pasture bush run (mostly Kangaroo grass) • Cocksfoot/Phalaris/Sub clover pasture • Barley grass/ Annual Brome grass pasture • Barley for supplementary feeding • Automated drafting equipment Instructions 1. Familiarise yourself with the scenario and how body condition scores are collected and used in sheep management. 2. 2. Summarise the data in the Ewe body condition score spreadsheet and produce a figure of the summary data. 3. Write a scientific report on this body condition scoring activity and include a management plan for what you would do and the resources you would use from today until lambing in July. Instructions – Report format word count is 1200 (± 10%) Report format: • Introduction • Methods • Results • Discussion & management plan • References Introduction • Introduce all the key background material for your report and support with the scientific literature (i.e. references). This may include information about: • What a body condition score is • How body condition scores can be used in sheep management • The relative nutritive values of the available feed resources • Maiden ewes • Multiple pregnancies Methods • Fully describe the data collection in enough detail that another person would be able to replicate the data collection. This may include information about: • the location where the data was collected • the animals used • how the data was collected the method • how you manipulated or summarised the data Results • Explain key finding in words and refer to figures/tables at the end of sentences (Figure 1) • Present data as a figure OR a table (don’t present the same data in 2 ways) • Figures must have legends BELOW the figure • Tables must have headers ABOVE the figure • Legends and headers must contain enough info so the table or figure could be interpreted without reading the rest of the report • If you have multiple figures then they should be labelled sequentially (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2) • If you have multiple tables then they should be labelled sequentially (e.g. Table 1, Table 2) Discussion and management plan • Put the results into context using the literature. • consider the robustness of the method used • Make any suggestions for future improvements or measurements to be taken. Management plan • describe how you would manage this mob of ewes through to lambing in July. Consider: • Consider the body condition score at the starting point (now), • the target at lambing • the variety of management tools or practices available to you to achieve your target, including the diversity of pasture resource. • Use references to support your text and demonstrate that it aligns with industry best practice. • You should finish your discussion with a summary of the key findings and conclusions References • All material that is not your own original thought must be paraphrased and referenced using the Harvard referencing style.