Saving by scanning

There are more advantages to using an ultrasound scanner on sheep than simply saving money, as this article showed.

Ultrasound scanning of ewes for pregnancy between 42 and 100 days more than pays for itself in reduced feeding costs of singletonbearing ewes and those that aren’t in-lamb.

There are many more important advantages, however, says Dr. Ian Herbst, a veterinarian from Caledon, Western Cape, who, together with his colleague, Dr Ricky Wilson, pioneered commercial scanning in South Africa in 1985.

“Identification of the ewes that aren’t in-lamb saves feeding costs in areas such as Caledon, where supplementary feed is given to in-lamb and lambing ewes,” Herbst explains.

“Feeding costs are 40c/kg [about R2,90/kg], so if ewes are given 500g a day for 100 days, it costs R20 [R145] per ewe (R20 000 [R145 000] for 100 days for a 1 000 ewe flock). If the ewes are given 250g a day for the same period, it costs R10 [R73] per ewe or R10 000 [R73 000] for the flock.

“With 10% dry ewes in a flock of 1 000, the costs of feeding dry ewes will unnecessarily amount to R2 000 [R14 500] at 500g/ewe/day, and at 250g/ewe/day, it will cost R1 000 [R7 300], excluding the costs of the licks, and so on,” says Herbst.