RURAL VIEWS: SCANNING EWES

In autumn on sheep farms, the rams are put out with the ewes. In spring, five months later, lambs are born. Between these two major events another important job happens on most farms: scanning the ewes.

Steve Leslie is one of the technicians who comes to Golden Bay. A very experienced operator, he has been scanning ewes for 23 years but confesses that he has never kept track of how many woolly tummies he has examined with his ultrasound.

Steve works an eight-hour day, scanning about 500 ewes in each two-hour stint, if they are flowing through the yards well. A scanning technician is set up with a lot of gear: a specially designed crate, a very expensive ultrasound machine, a generator for isolated yards with no power, extra gates, a little tent for when he is operating outside on wet days, and a water system to lubricate the probe. Having a good team of helpers to keep ewes moving up the race is important, and the shed needs to be quiet so the person drafting can hear Steve’s calls. Ewes are identified as triplet, twin, single, or dry, and then mobs are fed appropriately for their requirements. The pregnancy can be aged early, mid, or late, to make shepherding easier during lambing. Spraying cannot be done near the scanner to protect him from being overcome by solvent. And the results? Steve commented that across the district, scanning percentages are quite variable. Autumn conditions and management influence the outcome, so the number of lambs on board depends on many factors like weather, amount of feed, condition of ewe, rising plane of nutrition, and disease. Our flock was affected by a bacterium colloquially called “pink eye” that causes temporary total or partial blindness. Some ewes had it when the rams went out, which was unfortunate timing, so we are relieved with the results and happy with 169 per cent over all our 2,908 ewes.

Now we look forward to spring and a new season of lambs.

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