Scanned today. Can't get over the poor result for lowland sheep with minerals etc. What people putting it down to weather?
Disappointing alright. What breeds have you and what do they usually scan at?
I've only quarter the number of sheep that you have but I was pleased at 186%. I’ll try post result.
One of the triplets is possibly carrying 4 lambs.
Mixed breeds mainly cross texal and cross suffolks. They all lowland crosses.
That's very good result by you.
Haven't changed anything but weather was extremely bad at tupping.
Ya the weather was very bad and grass got very scarce as they walked a lot of it into the ground. I am a big believer in lots of good minerals in the 8 weeks pre tupping.
I gave them 6 month all care bolus couple weeks before tupping.
Had a scanning i was very happy with granted i have small numbers. Out of 20 no empties, 13 twins, 6 singles and 1 triplet. Huge improvement on last year when half were empty. Have had mineral buckets with them this year, don't know if that made a difference.
Same Ram?
No new hogget charollois ram...last years was an old ram
I'd say ur high barren rate was due to him last year and not the sheep
Genetics and body condition score lot more important than minerals imo
I'd say they're 3 legs of a stool. Take away one of them and scanning % will drop.
Well it’s not like they don’t have minerals without the bolus or whatever I wonder do teagasc give them much
Scanning rates around here are back somewhat on previous years according to what I am hearing.Lack of grass to put on condition after weaning would have been the major factor I think .
Had some aftergrass for a few early ones (January lambed 30 old ewes).Can't remember how they scanned but have 51 lambs in the field with them 2 weeks old and upwards.Would have expected around that as they were good ewes but poor mouths so not viable to keep in the main flock.
Main lot started getting silage end of August due to lack of grass and were on it until moved to green cover December 1st.Scanned 1.6 something which sounds disappointing but then again only 19 trebles on almost 400 ewes and no quads.Always be more worried about dry ones.Do know I had 8 scanned dry of which 3 were ewe lambs which broke in late on in the year.
If they hadn't got silage would imagine rate would have been a lot worse as had little or no grass here all Summer due to the dry weather.Ewes were in poor enough condition at weaning and a thin ewe at tupping is a disaster.
On a related note see in lamb ewes are back a fair bit in the marts the last couple of weeks.Sheep that would have made 200 plus last spring are struggling to hit 150 this year.The appetite to lamb ewes doesn't seem to be there at the moment.
Scanned 2.07 here with 2.5% empty rate. Always scan around the 2 but this year the sheep were nearly forgotten about due to other things going on. They didn’t get a mineral dose pre ram turn out like normal. Was expecting it to be well down listening to other peoples scan results. Scanner did say he’s not seeing it a bad scan like was reported. Didn’t get hit here with a drought or anything last autumn so that might help.
140%. Not disgusted with it as thought it was a very hard year on ewes. Biggest problem is the little lads ewe is empty
Actually 110% 🙈
Lots of empties or lots of singles?
Nearly all singles
Take the positives from it. The lambs will be gone earlier this year and the ewes should be in great condition at mating.
What breeds have you got? Would you consider crossing with a belclare, Lleyn or blue faced Leicester and keep replacements that would scan higher?
If they were in good condition at mating you should test for mineral deficiencies, Our grass here is cobalt deficient and if we didn't keep them topped up with cobalt we'd have nothing.
What age did you wean the lambs, hard year or not , ewes need 10 -12 weeks rest after weaning before mating. also lambs don't gain anything by being on a ewe longer than 12 weeks
Moving house etc etc meant ewes & lambs werent managed as well as we did in previous years. Land at the new place needs work too which had to go on the long finger as we ended up re roofing the new house. a learning curve i guess but sure it is what it is. Hopefully well improve for next year.
