Component 2 — Lamb Fattening | Fewer, Better Animals

The core problem

The traditional path to market is slow and wasteful

A lamb is herded for 3–4 years to reach a 45kg slaughter weight, surviving multiple winters, dzud risk, and disease exposure along the way — for a return that barely covers the pasture it consumed. Priced at market forage value, a mature wether eats roughly ₮1.4M worth of grass over its lifetime but sells for ₮150,000–500,000 — a ₮900,000 loss per animal once pasture is counted as a real cost.

Today, 60–70% of Mongolia's sheep flock is exactly this: low-productivity animals kept for years, degrading pasture the whole time, contributing little to household income or meat output. Herders keep them anyway, because the flock is their insurance — and because no alternative lets them realize income faster.

Pasture supplies more than 90% of an animal's feed in Mongolia's herding system. Severe overgrazing has driven a chronic forage shortage, and that shortage — not genetics — is why animals cannot reach slaughter weight younger: growth stalls every winter. This is the same problem Pasture Use Agreements (Component 1) are designed to fix. Lamb Fattening breaks the loop at a different point: instead of limiting herd numbers directly, it decouples the lamb's weight gain from the pasture's actual forage supply.

Change in live weight of sheep, per year, kg. Conventional herding cycles a sheep through repeated winter losses and summer regains for 4 years before reaching 45kg — never a clean climb. Lamb fattening reaches the same 45kg in a single, uninterrupted year.

What it is

Feed the ewe, not the lamb

A supplementary feeding protocol applied to lambing ewes, during March–April, when pasture quality is at its annual low. The ewe receives 45 days of high-quality concentrate feed (250–300g/day) alongside normal grazing. This roughly doubles her milk yield, which the lamb converts directly into growth. Lambs reach 45.9kg live weight by 7–8 months — old enough to sell the same year, instead of over-wintering for another 2–3 years.

Feeds the ewe, not the lamb directly — avoids the digestive disruption of feeding concentrate to a young lamb
Growth is continuous — nursing gains hand off directly to summer pasture growth, no post-winter weight loss
Only male lambs destined for slaughter are fed this way — female replacement stock follows normal rearing

Why not just feed the lamb directly?

Three approaches tried and rejected first

Approach	Failure mode
Feed lambs directly, early	Feed cuts off once lamb reaches pasture with mother — can't keep pace with adults
Intensive short-term autumn fattening	Sudden high-concentrate diet causes digestive upset in an unconditioned animal
Feed all lambing ewes indiscriminately	Wastes feed on female replacement stock that doesn't need it

The ewe-feeding model avoids all three: growth is continuous, digestion is never shocked, and feed is targeted only at animals headed to market.

How it works — 6 steps

Select quality breeding rams — evaluated for body condition, growth performance, and lineage

Classify breeding ewes — sorted into core / breeding / general herds, matched to appropriate rams

Organize breeding season — timed regionally so lambing lands in mid-to-late March

Feed the ewe, not the lamb — 45 days of concentrate feed from first lambing, newborn lambs kept near camp

Transition to open pasture — 90 days, ewe and lamb graze together as pasture greens up

Wean and finish — male lambs (min. 35kg) separated, moved to fresh pasture to finish to market weight

The evidence

Growth: fed vs. conventional (same lamb, tracked monthly)

Age	Conventional	With ewe-feeding
Birth	3.5kg	3.5kg
3 months	12.7kg	14.5kg
6 months	28.7kg	32.2kg
7 months	34.9kg	39.0kg
8 months	37.2kg	45.9kg (+23%)

Household economics (500-sheep household, one season)

	Current	Ewe-feeding
Meat produced	2.63t	5.0t
Meat revenue	₮17.9M	₮34.0M
Feed cost	—	₮11.5M
Net profit	₮12.6M	₮17.2M

National herd-turnover model (per 100 sheep)

Scenario	Ewe share	Meat kg	Income growth
A — current	45%	526	—
B	45%	709	+34.7%
C	60%	884	+68.0%
D — full model	70%	1,001	+90.3%

A = current conditions: herd grows 10%/year, no lamb sales. B–D hold herd size constant and sell lambs at increasing rates. Meat priced at 2019–2021 national average herder sale price of ₮6,800/kg.

At full adoption, pasture required per 100kg of meat falls from 55ha to 29ha — a 47% reduction — while income per 100 sheep nearly doubles.