Abstract
Lamb mortality on British farms can vary from below 5% to over 40%. Severe weather (cold, wet or wind) is an important cause of death but its impact is extremely variable and sporadic. Its effectiveness in discriminating between lambs of different potential viability is therefore limited. Laboratory tests are now being used to measure the ability of lambs to resist cold exposure (i.e., prevent body cooling) and to identify the genetic and physiological factors involved. These include birthcoat type, birthweight, skin thickness, and metabolic rate responses. There are significant breed differences in cold-resistance tests, ability to resist hypothermia in the field, neonatal behaviour, and natural mortality rates in the field. Genetic selection for cold resistance, using a water-bath test, has recently commenced. The heritability of cold resistance and correlated responses in, for example, metabolic rate and lamb viability in the field, are being measured.
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