January-April is the main lambing season in the UK, when lambs are born. Lambs are often slaughtered at around four months of age, although some are killed as young as 10 weeks and some are kept for up to 15 months. Despite being capable of living to the age of 15 years or more, ewes (female sheep) are slaughtered after only four to eight years. The meat from these mature sheep is called mutton and is less popular than lamb meat, so it is mostly used in processed foods or sold abroad. So remember, when you eat lamb in the UK, it really is a lamb, a baby sheep...
The UK sheep flock size was 35 million in 2005, consisting of half mature sheep and half lambs. One million mature sheep die each year of cold, hunger, sickness, complications in pregnancy or birth, or injury. The death rate is much worse for lambs, with four million dying from exposure within a few days of birth - that is about one in four of all new-born lambs, dying in the fields. The survivors, of course, are slaughtered.
Sheep naturally breed once a year and have just one lamb, occasionally two, with most lambs being born in the warmer conditions of Spring. But farmers, wanting the higher prices paid for Easter lamb, change this natural breeding cycle so that lambs are born earlier, even as early as December, and so many die of exposure in the cold weather. This unnatural breeding cycle is achieved by the use of hormones or by keeping ewes indoors and limiting their access to light. Artificial insemination for sheep is becoming normal practice. Crowding ewes together in lambing sheds results in lack of hygiene and the spread of disease.
The most profitable product of British sheep farming is lamb meat. More lambs equals a higher income for the farmer. Some ewes are forced to give birth to three or even four lambs a year. No mother can cope with this number, especially a mother which has evolved to have only one lamb a year, in the Spring. Despite this intensive exploitation of sheep, sheep farmers depend on state subsidies, with about 30 per cent of their income in 2003 coming from the tax-payer, ie over £300 million.
Slaughtered lambs do not just become meat - lamb's wool, taken from slaughtered lambs, makes up about 27 per cent of UK wool production...
Read more at www.viva.org.uk/guides/animals/lambs.html