We recently scanned our ewes for pregnancies, and 412 of them are bearing!

Look at them! Those with the red mark on their faces are bearing either twin or multiple foetuses; those without a mark are bearing singles, and the dry ewes are marked with green.

Pregnancy scanning is a great management tool to improve profits for meat and wool enterprises, particularly those running higher stocking rates and when paddock feed is in short supply. The rams had been sent in with the ewes on the 15th November last year, and were taken out on 31 January this year.

The commercial availability of ultrasound scanning for pregnancy in ewes has been a major development for the sheep industry. It enables farmers to know the pregnancy status of their ewes about two months before they are expected to start lambing. Information on the pregnancy status of ewes enables farmers to:

• Identify and manage ewes separately according to pregnancy status

• Identify and potentially cull dry ewes from flock

• Identify early and late conceived single bearing ewes

• Calculate lamb losses between scanning and marking

We expect our new babies to be born from the middle of April 2014!