Scanned out our flock on Friday. 136%. Not bad for Southdowns although most of our Badger-Faced came up empty (different ram).

How's everybody else doing? 

 195% Suffolk mules, just started lambing with them at the moment

perry6420:

 195% Suffolk mules, just started lambing with them at the moment

Thats a good number. What methods do you use?

are theses spendthrift sheep>

you meant prolifacy yes?

glasshouse:

you meant prolifacy yes?

i have been outsmartalexed!

glasshouse, Prolificacy is probably the most difficult word for people to remember and write correctly, although everybody seems to know what it is and means. I too liked the idea of profligate sheep. I do believe I have owned more than my share of those.

hareley farmer:

Scanned out our flock on Friday. 136%. Not bad for Southdowns although most of our Badger-Faced came up empty (different ram).

How's everybody else doing? 

Scanning is not available to us (Romania) but the prolificacy of my Dorpers, which gave birt until now, is about 170%. Not bad, isn't it?

176% not flushed,  80% of singles were 80% the suffolk X ewes so not trying that again. Main breeding is welsh mule x dorset horn.  

We have pedigree texels and this year we scanned at 190%, a jump of just under 50% as compared to the last two years, where we have hovered at just over 140%. All ewes were sponged this year (but a large portion were sponged the last two years as well), and I would say that the ewes probably had better grass and conditions to be flushed on this year, but this year for the first time we used Se/I boluses just before tupping, do you think this would make that much of a difference, or is it just a combination of having better pasture and a bit of luck?

It is worth noting that even though our scanning is up by almost 50%, we actually have less triplets and no quads this year, just a lot lot more twins. I just hope we have a good lambing!!

Sounds like a near perfect scanning to me.  Perfection would be all twins and no triplets/quads!!

I'd say the Se/I bolus could increase  lambing percentage by 20% depending on what level of Se/I you're starting from, splitting the other 30% fairly equally between more grass and luck.

With sheep a bit of luck is always usefull!!

As I have been quickly reminded today it's not how many you scan it's how many you manage to keep alive for selling/breeding etc! Just lost a set of twins with an ewe aborting two large lambs about 17 days before time (let's hope it's not this schmallenburg thingy!), to compound the set of triplets that were inside  a ewe which had a terrible prolapse and had to be put down a few weeks ago!! That scanning % soon gets affected when you only have 34 ewes!!

Oh the joys of farming!

 dylanbeefy, My sentiments exactly. My view of lambing percentages was always - Number of ewes tupped x number of lambs sold + number of ewe lambs retained for breeding. It is never, ever the number of lambs born alive. Anything dying after 31st December is counted as a loss and not a reduction of lambing %age.

I can beat you all, my Bleu De Maine cross ewes scanned at 217% except for about 30 which forced the pen open and got away. Not many singles but quite a lot of triplets so we will be kept busy. The better ewes will go out with 3 lambs if they are all the same size. The triplet ewes are on turnips and mollasses, they look well, start to lamb them mid march.

stapler:

except for about 30 which forced the pen open and got away

How do you know they weren't all barreners ?

Good luck with the lambing, hope the weather's on your side. You'll need it with all those lambs.

Dorset Down.

• No barreners
• 176%. (of which 6% are triplets)