Agriland recently caught up with sheep scanner Kieran McGee from Co. Donegal who has been busy scanning sheep over the Christmas period to find out how flocks have been scanning across the north-west of the country.
He said that so far this year, the scanning results have been “varied” as the early-lambing flocks which were scanned “hadn’t a great lambing percentage this year”.
He suggested that “the abnormally mild weather” during the mating season for the early-lambing flocks may have been a factor attributing to this and said “this isn’t always the case and perhaps it affected the fertility or rams weren’t working as hard as they should have been”.
As a result of this, he noted that many of the early-lambing flocks he scanned “had a large number of baron ewes plus the litter size was a lot smaller this year than it would normally be”.
Scanning mid-season flocks
The Co. Donegal-based scanning technician said that the mid-season flocks he has scanned so far “have been very, very good”.
Scanning percentages “are on par with last year which was a good year”.
“Ewes that have been well grazed and are in good condition are coming in with large numbers of lambs, scanning rates of 1.9-2 for some of the top-end flocks and back then to 1.7 for those mid-range flocks which is very good.”
One of the trends McGee has noticed in the flocks he has scanned this season is farmers “keeping a few less ewes but then because they’re keeping a few less, their ewes are being kept in a bit better condition therefore their lambing percentage is going up.
“Just because they’re keeping less ewes, they might not have less lambs. They might end up with as many lambs as they would have keeping a larger number of ewes because the ewes are getting a better doing.”
The scanning technician said that the mood amongst sheep farmers with regards to the current trade “is very positive” with “a lot of lads giving out about not having enough of lambs to sell”.
“It has been a great year for selling lambs and it’s a great trade at this time of the year. The store lamb producer is getting on well also which is very important. Everyone needs to get a turn at them.”
Late lambing
On trends in the sheep trade, McGee noted that “perhaps the mid-season lambing man mightn’t be getting on as well as he would have other years”.
“It seems to be the early lamb and the late lamb but more so the late lamb that seems to be coming into a better trade at this stage where as the mid-season lamb is gone a few months ago and perhaps missed out on the good prices there at the minute.”
He noted that the sheep scanning season starts to peak in the first week of January and remains very busy throughout the month.
“From the end of January to the beginning of February it gradually starts to ease back then.”
The scanning season kicks off in October with the scanning of the pedigree flocks and the early-lambing flocks that are lambing at Christmas.