THE weather is cold and wet at David Coad's property near Moyston, where the Ararat Best Wool Best Lamb Group has gathered to look, listen and learn.

Here, in the district that hosted the birth of Australian Rules football, it is lambing time.

    AT A GLANCE
  • Who: David Coad
  • What: sheep
  • Why: tackling lamb mortality
  • Where: Ararat

But while football has kicked on since a young Tom Wills played his first games with local indigenous children more than 150 years ago, not all the lambs are kicking goals.

On the back of David's ute are this week's casualties, lost despite his best efforts in breeding, shelter provision and feeding-up ewes before and during gestation.

And to help him find the causes are Department of Primary Industries' veterinarian Robert Suter and sheep project leader Linda Fahy.

With shades of the forensic investigator in a crime-fiction plot, Dr Suter carefully examines the lambs to see when and how they met their demise.

He looks at their feet to see if they walked and their stomach contents to see if they fed from their mother.

He weighs them and looks to see if they have been cleaned down after birth.

Some have contracted a virus during gestation and another from an infection through the navel. One died of pneumonia.

Brains, lungs and abdomens all provide clues to the losses.

One lamb is without its tail and ears and looks like it fell victim to a fox.

Dr Suter agrees but said the lamb had already been weakened by starvation and would have only lasted a few more hours had it not encountered the fox.

"Predation is rarely the primary cause of death," Dr Suter said. "In one recent study of 700 lambs, predation was found to have killed only 4 per cent."

For David, it is an enlightening exercise.

"We try to do everything we can to protect the lambs during gestation and lambing but every year we do get our losses," he said.

"The thing I learnt most from this exercise is that it is not always obvious what has caused their death.

"This has helped us see what is happening in the paddocks and highlighted that foxes and eagles are more scavengers than actual predators causing a lot of lamb deaths."

Examination that day found about a third of lambs had died as a result of birthing complications, another third to mis-mothering and the remainder to other causes, such as infections.

Dr Suter said farmers could have young lambs that died from the age of one week to weaning tested as part of the DPI's Lamb and Kid Mortality project.

Landholders taking part in the project will have their dead lambs and kids examined to determine the cause of death by DPI Animal Health Field Services staff or private veterinarians.

The examinations should ideally be conducted within 12 to 24 hours of death.

The results could then be used to advise farmers on how to reduce losses and improve lamb and kid welfare.

David is already looking at possible ways to help lambs get the best chance.

"We are looking at the option of using information from scans to be able to divide ewes into early and late-lambing mobs," he said.

"I urge people to join in the survey. We can't respond to something we don't understand.

"We won't be able to save every lamb but hopefully we will be able to improve our survival rate."

Linda said the project would help the DPI and landholders better understand what was happening in the paddock and collectively provide vital information for the industry.

"Through this process we will not only decrease the losses but also potentially improve farm productivity and profitability," Linda said.

Farmers wanting to take part in the survey should call their local DPI animal health officer.