Sheep Scanning

Today saw me getting ready for my first ever sheep scanning of my flock. Being a first time farmer everything I do is a learning curve. I haven’t had years of experience so it’s all about learning on the job.

Many experienced farmers know that when they put their tups in with the ewes, that’s the time to book scanning in advance. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case with me so today’s scanning was only to see if they were in lamb, not how many lambs each ewe is carrying. Knowing how many lambs are due is an advantage. I will now have to be on hand more and be extra vigilant in the welfare of the expectant mothers.

My flock consists of a mix of Coloured Ryelands, Swaledales and Hexham Black Faced Mules. They were all covered with Whiskey my 5 year old Coloured Ryeland tup. As I wanted to keep my pedigree lines in my Ryelands and the fencing at the farm isn’t fully stock proof for sheep, it was easier to keep them all together.

Sheep never do what you want. I was hoping to arrive at the farm today and they were all in the same field. Well, that wasn’t the case. They’d decided to spread over three fields so first job was to collect them, which isn’t easy when you dog isn’t trained up yet and you have one chance as they get wise, especially the Swaledales. I haven’t purchased sheep hurdles with a run yet but after some clever manoeuvres, they were all in the pen.

The sheep scanning results are in

Megan from What.The.Flock.Lancs arrived with her scanning trailer. After some jiggery-pokery with some gates we were set up and ready for scanning. To say I was excited is an understatement. It’s like waiting for your first born, not knowing and the excitement of what’s due. The results were great: 39 out of 40 are in lamb. The one that wasn’t is a shearling mule so I’ll give her another chance next year whilst marking down her number to monitor.

My first lambing date is the 22nd March. This is a very exciting time for me although to be honest, it’s whole new experience and one I will be learning as I go. The farming community is so friendly and I’ve already had some great advice. As I’m lambing in March/April I’m lambing outside. I am constructing so lambing pens inside for any ewes and lambs that need close monitoring.

I’ll be keeping my farm blog diary updated so keep reading to find out how lambing progresses and follow me on YouTube and Instagram to see everything that’s going on @Tessleymoor Farm

Posted: February 10, 2022