Scanning of early-lambing flocks is complete, and scanning of mid-season lambing flocks is now underway. Ewes are generally scanned at 80 to 90 days post-ram turnout.
To get an insight into how sheep flocks have been scanning, Agriland caught up with Kieran McGee who has been busy scanning ewes with Farm Relief Services (FRS) for farmers across the north-west of Ireland and in surrounding counties.
The Donegal man said what he has seen from the flocks he has scanned is that farmers who are lambing ewes early in the season have seen low scanning rates in general while mid-season flocks have been scanning particularly well.
He noted that early-lambing pedigree sheep breeders and flocks that are lambing around the Christmas “would have scanned particularly bad this year in general” and said the reason for this general trend is unknown.
He added that “it was expected because of the wet year that the mid-season lambers would be [scanning] very poor, but they’re not”.
“Mid season lambers would be [scanning] a small bit better than last year as in .5 to .8 ahead of what last year’s general scanning rates would have been, which is very, very good. Most flocks are scanning very well at present.
“We are now scanning the flocks that are primarily lambing around the beginning of March and the scanning rates are ahead of last year.”
He added that he is “just starting to get into scanning the mid-season lambers now” and said he “wouldn’t expect it to decrease at any rate”.
Commenting on the number of ewes that are in lamb across the country this season, he said: “There was a lot of talk about a lot less ewes tipped this yea,r and farmers getting out of sheep.
“I don’t see much of that at all, farmers with 80-90 ewes might have 10 ewes less or so, but your bigger flocks still have the large numbers of ewes.
“The breeding sales were through the roof this year, and numbers don’t seem to be back the way some farmers had thought they would be.”