The Impacts of Waterproof Insulated Jackets on Lamb Performance on a UK Lowland Farm

Simple Summary Cold stress is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in lambs, with negative implications on both lamb welfare and economics. A recent anecdotal trend has been the provision of insulating jackets to young stock on cattle farms, despite a lack of evidence for their effectiveness in the literature. This study aimed to document the use of similar insulating jackets in lambs to determine if they could reduce the effect of cold stress on lamb growth. Insulating lamb jackets were assessed on their effect on physiological parameters such as temperature and weight gain to determine if they provided an advantage to lamb production. This study found that the jackets had no significant effect on lamb average weight gain, live weight or estimated body temperature. However, jacketed lambs had significantly higher surface temperatures throughout the study. The majority of lamb losses occur within the first two weeks of life, with cold stress being a major cause of lamb morbidity and mortality. This study investigated the effect of insulating lamb jackets on newborn lambs. One hundred and four newborn lambs were randomly allocated by birth date to two treatment groups, (a) non-jacketed (n = 52) or (b) jacketed (n = 52), for fourteen days after birth. The live weights of lambs were recorded regularly up to 21 days, and average daily weight gains were calculated from these data. For the first two days after recruitment to the study, surface and body temperatures of lambs were also recorded. The jackets significantly increased the lambs' surface temperatures, providing a warmer microclimate and reduced cold stress for jacketed lambs. There was no significant effect of the insulating jackets on estimated body temperatures, live weights or average daily weight gain of the lambs in this study. There were no detrimental effects of the jackets, and no rejection of lambs occurred.

Automated summary

The study aimed to investigate the effect of insulating lamb jackets on newborn lambs and found that while the jackets significantly increased the lambs' surface temperatures, there was no significant effect on estimated body temperatures, live weights, or average daily weight gain. There were no detrimental effects of the jackets observed, and no rejection of lambs occurred during the study.