Scanning accuracy

farmer92

Member
Location
Northamptonshire
Just had one of our barren marked ewes have a lamb this afternoon out in the field. We lamb indoors but most have been turned out now, with a couple of our empty ones running with them (shearling’s that’ll get one more chance this autumn). All lambed end of March but had a couple late ones last week.

How accurate has anyone else found their scanners? We’ve had a lot of triplets out of marked twins, but having a lamb out of a supposedly barren ewe is new to me. Granted it is a small lamb and she was late too, so probably just wasn’t spotted. Up and about, suckling etc so all good (y)

Just wondered how everyone else got on scanning?
 

GTB

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Our scanner misses a few triplets, maybe ten/fifteen out of 2000+ ewes so not too bad. Very rarely get a mistake between barren/single/twin.
 

scholland

Member
Location
ze3
Just had one of our barren marked ewes have a lamb this afternoon out in the field. We lamb indoors but most have been turned out now, with a couple of our empty ones running with them (shearling’s that’ll get one more chance this autumn). All lambed end of March but had a couple late ones last week.

How accurate has anyone else found their scanners? We’ve had a lot of triplets out of marked twins, but having a lamb out of a supposedly barren ewe is new to me. Granted it is a small lamb and she was late too, so probably just wasn’t spotted. Up and about, suckling etc so all good (y)

Just wondered how everyone else got on scanning?
What stage of pregnancy were they scanned at? Bellies empty?
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Our scanner misses a few triplets, maybe ten/fifteen out of 2000+ ewes so not too bad. Very rarely get a mistake between barren/single/twin.

Mine is similar to this, lates very accurate and we’re having late twins/triplets born in the last few days and they were scanned at new year! All ran in straight off the field. It wouldn’t have been more than 5-6 mistakes out of 1300 odd. (Scanned 8 weeks from the start of lambing)
 
Location
whitby
Ours is unfortanately abit inaccurate. Got maybe 20-25 wrong out of 280. Shame as he trys his best just cant seem to get it bang on with ours. Bloke we used to use was unlucky if he got 1 wrong at all.
 

irish dom

Member
If scanned at right time( I prefer from 75 to 95days from start of breeding) and they are not stuffed with precision chop or beet accuracy should be 98 to 99%. If the ram is pulled in time then empties should not be missed. However if the ram goes thru the crate with ewes and you have cuckoo lambs that's your own look out.
Gone scanning 2 bunches of summer lambed today in between lambing my own. Don't know who is the bigger bollox?
 
Just had one of our barren marked ewes have a lamb this afternoon out in the field. We lamb indoors but most have been turned out now, with a couple of our empty ones running with them (shearling’s that’ll get one more chance this autumn). All lambed end of March but had a couple late ones last week.

How accurate has anyone else found their scanners? We’ve had a lot of triplets out of marked twins, but having a lamb out of a supposedly barren ewe is new to me. Granted it is a small lamb and she was late too, so probably just wasn’t spotted. Up and about, suckling etc so all good (y)

Just wondered how everyone else got on scanning?
What date did the tups go with ewes? What date did the tup come away from ewes? What date did you scan?
 

Joe

Member
Location
Carlow Ireland
If my scanner did other contractor work would use him for that in the morning, easily the most reliable and best person at his job that I have ever used for anything. Saying that guy previous to him was absolutely useless and was only used one year..
 
Depends on the quality of the Scanner!!!
Ours is very good, but as we scan within 2 weeks of lambing I don't hold him to missing triplets!
Do you mainly do it to cull geld ewes And fostering purposes? I don’t scan for the simple reason that sheep are all over the show in the winter and i can’t bear to drag them all into one place. Always wanted to and I would be doing at same time as you to make it possible - but never thought it would be accurate enough to be worthwhile. How many do get missed realistically?
 

EJS

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Ashford, Kent
I've had 100% accuracy for last 4 years although only scanning 130 odd a year. Very pleased with my scanner and definitely worth it from a feeding point of view for me.
 
Our scanner is a bit like the curates egg, several trips on twin marked ewes and even a quad. But as long as the empties are correct then still seems worth it. The problem with being in a low sheep area is the lack of alternatives I could use.
 

scottish-lleyn

Member
Mixed Farmer
Had a really dodjy scan a when we had the old flock guy was advertising in the paper so phoned him up.(this was the first year we scanned). He said i will come next monday so that was fine we only had 500 ewes then and everybody had told us it would be a few hours max. Anyway this guy arrived at 9am which i now know is a late start for a scanner. And we never finished scanning until 7.30pm that night he never got a single sheep correct it was a fudging disaster. Spoke to a few folk that used him and they said the same. He isnt scanning anymore. The scanners i use now are spot on so far this year everything correct. I alway ring one of them every year but you never know which ones going to turn up in the morning. But they are both very very good.
 

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Do you mainly do it to cull geld ewes And fostering purposes? I don’t scan for the simple reason that sheep are all over the show in the winter and i can’t bear to drag them all into one place. Always wanted to and I would be doing at same time as you to make it possible - but never thought it would be accurate enough to be worthwhile. How many do get missed realistically?

We do it mainly to make lambing easier and of course to get rid of the empties when the price is usually good.
Lambing outside is far easier with scanned sheep.
 

Boydvalley

Member
Location
Bath
Can't imagine lambing without scanning now. Feeding the correct amount to each group is vital to stop problems during lambing. Used to have horrendous large singles. Find a good scanner and stick with him. Equally if he says starve them for a few hours before do it. No good complaining after if you haven't.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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