@article {3672,
	title = {BRIEF COMMUNICATION: Influence of birth rank on cause of lamb deaths prior to weaning},
	journal = {New Zealand Journal of Animal Science and Production},
	volume = {80},
	year = {2020},
	month = {09/2020},
	pages = {21-23},
	address = {Online},
	abstract = {Post-mortem examinations were carried out on 1098 lambs that died between birth and weaning at 12 weeks of age to evaluate the
causes of mortality in a high-fertility flock. These comprised 95\% of all lamb deaths from a total of 14732 lambs born over nine
years. Starvation/exposure was the biggest cause of lamb deaths (26\%) followed by infection (20\%), hypoxia (16\%) and prenatal
deaths (16\%). Prenatal deaths were 18\%, 12\% and 10\%; deaths due to hypoxia were 18\%, 15\% and 11\% and to starvation were
28\%, 26\% and 12\% for triplets, twins and singles respectively. There were no significant differences between birth ranks for
deaths from infection.

Keywords: mortality; litter size; birth rank; dystocia; starvation; prenatal; single; twin; triplet; survival; sheep},
	issn = {1176-5283},
	author = {Thomson BC and Smith NB and Ward KR and Muir PD}
}
