Scanners around the country are reporting a mixed bag for the upcoming lambing season. The results seem to depend on how badly affected the area was during the drought, as well as stocking densities.

In the main, scanners in the west are reporting normal rates.

Some commented that early season flocks were slightly down, but that numbers recovered a few weeks into scanning as they moved on to mid-season flocks.

“Most guys are getting results of 1.7 or 1.8, but early crops would be a lower percentage usually anyway,” said Craig Finnerty, who covers Galway and Roscommon.

Similarly in Fermanagh and Leitrim, scanner Patrick McManus said: “sheep are scanning well”.

“At the moment, they’re getting results of 200%, but early on it wasn’t as good,” he said.

In south Kerry, Stephen McCarthy started scanning two weeks before Christmas and he says the results so far are good.

However, if you cross the line into areas where soil moisture deficits were much worse during the 2018 summer drought, scanners report problems.

Poor results

“Results are very poor. I’ve had some shocking bad scans anywhere below Athlone where sheep are well stocked,” said Dominic Black.

In dry areas, some farmers were using semi-bare fields for flushing as they tried to get an extra field cut for silage

“Down south I saw some results of 1.4 and 1.5 with some very good farmers – the drought just decimated them. I’ve also heard of rams that went infertile in the heat.”

Peter Meath says that in dry areas, some farmers were using semi-bare fields for flushing as they tried to get an extra field cut for silage.

“I’ve never seen it like it. Dry conditions and tight grazing is the reason lamb crops are down,” says Meath, who covers the midlands.

In the week running up to Christmas, he got results of 1.8 and 2.1 ,but before that he “couldn’t get over 1.7”.