With the breeding season at an end and the task of housing ewes on the horizon, another job on the ‘to-do list’ over the coming weeks and into the new year is scanning ewes.

Scanning ewes offer a number of benefits that farmers should be looking to take advantage of and if the plan is to keep your flock out on grass afterwards, a number of other jobs can be done while the ewes are in the yard such as footbathing and dosing, for example.

For mid-season lambing flocks, scanning will be in full swing in January, while others will be aiming to do it over the coming weeks.

Scanning results offer a number of benefits such as:

  • It will identify empty ewes that can be culled and sold;
  • It will give an indication of the number of lambs a ewe is carrying;
  • Ewes can also be batched according to the number of lambs they are carrying;
  • It will give farmers an idea of how much feed should be offered to ewes.

In terms of scanning, the ideal time to scan your flock is 80-90 days post-ram turnout. It is best to avoid scanning ewes that are less than 40 days in-lamb, as this will result in pregnant ewes not being identified and possibly end up being culled as they were considered empty.

If you plan on scanning, it is best to restrict ewes’ feed intake eight-to-10 hours prior to scanning in order to enable the scanner to accurately predict the number of lambs a ewe is carrying.

On the flip side, scanning ewes that are greater than 90 days in-lamb will make it more difficult for the scanner to identify how many lambs the ewe is carrying.

Knowing how many ewes a lamb is carrying will enable farmers to make more informed management decisions, especially in terms of feeding and how much should be fed to single, twin and triplet-bearing ewes.

Triplet-bearing ewes are obviously going to require extra feeding in the run-up to lambing in comparison to single-bearing ewes, for example, so by knowing how many lambs a ewe is carrying, they can then be grouped and fed accordingly.