Reports from sheep scanners on the average size of this spring’s lamb crop appear mixed, as are indications of farmer decisions on flock sizes.

Craig Finnerty, who scans flocks across Galway and Roscommon, told the Irish Farmers Journal that scanning results in the round look to be on par with last year’s, although a “few more empties were coming up in earlier lambing flocks”.

Ewes scanned by Finnerty have been generally in “pretty good” body condition, although he noted that many flocks have “slipped” since the mid-January turn in ground conditions.

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“Numbers do seem to be holding their own, very few of the flocks I scan for have reduced numbers this year.”

Similar reports came from Liam Dunne, who scans across Laois, Offaly, Tipperary, and Kilkenny.

“Ewes are in good condition, there seems to have been lots of grass around at the back end of the year and crops look good, but there will always be the odd disappointment thrown up for individual farmers,” Dunne said.

“I haven’t seen any slippage in numbers in the flocks I’m scanning for but these would mostly be farmers in sheep for the long-haul and they would be looking to do things right,” he said.

Dunne mentioned that a “bit of a worry” for him is the lack of younger cow scanners scanning sheep.

“If I needed a hand scanning cows, there would be plenty of young lads around to call on. It’s not that way with the sheep,” he said.

“I suppose you could put it down to sheep scanning being a seasonal burst of work and that AI and scanning cows generally tend to go hand-in-hand.”

However, more disappointing results were reported by scanners covering other parts of the country, such as Charles O’Shea, who mainly scans in Cork, Kerry and Tipperary.

“Singles look to be up this year and earlier ewes are back a bit alright on last year’s scans. This is with sheep in good order and with ewes back 10% in a lot places,” O’Shea told the Irish Farmers Journal.

Pushing dates

“Something else I have seen is that a lot of farmers who would have lambed from 17 March have pushed back their lambing date two weeks into April.

“It seems to be down to struggles to get help at lambing and older farmers trying to make life a bit easier for themselves by lambing when there’s more daylight.”

John Patterson covers Donegal and surrounding counties and has seen 2026 scans being a “mixed bag with plenty of empties”.

“Sheep are in very good nick but at the same time, some areas seem to have more farmers than sheep,” Patterson.

“There’s a lot of factors playing into the dwindling numbers between age profile, the payments system and off-farm jobs.”