500 down..... 450 to go!

Today is scanning day on the farm. We're ten weeks off lambing the main flock so Ian came to ultrasound scan the ewes. You can always trust the weather to choose an extreme version of itself for scanning day. Last year it was -5 and the gel for the scanning wand kept freezing. This year we had to deal with galeforce winds which are no fun on the fen where there isn't a hedge, hill or building to create a windbreak for miles!
The sheep are penned up and hearded through a race, they receive a liquithrive drench on their way and then into the scanning crate. In seconds they are scanned and sprayed. A mark on the shoulder = single lamb
Rump = triplets
No mark = twins
Head = empty/barren

The first 300 scanned at a rate of 210% meaning an average 2.1 lambs per ewe. When I left to pick the kids up from school we were almost done with the second 300 which were sitting at over 200% also. After 500 ewes we'd only had two empty (not pregnant) which is fantastic. Graham, Simon, Trevor and the other tups (rams to you) have obvioulsy been working hard. Yiu can see the evidence on the green rump of the ewe in the race in the picture. Thats the stain left by the tupping crayon.