[horsemadmummy]

We are having some shetland ewes who we are told should be in lamb and due any time from end of month.  They have not been scanned and as they are first timers told it is difficult to know what they are expecting.  Question - is it too late to scan now? Clearly it would be useful to know if we are due any lambs and whether there are any twins etc.  We are first time sheep keepers so advice would be great.  One bonus is our neighbour is our vet!!

[Freddiesfarm]

Normally you would get them scanned at 70-90 days.  After that the scanner should be able to say yes or no, but it gets more difficult to give accurate numbers.  Plus the stress of scanning might be abit much this late on in the pregnancy.  But is only a few sheep and well handled they should be fine

[horsemadmummy]

planning to keep them in for while anyway so they get used to us given that there is only 5 ewes are we better simply to 'wait and see' they are travelling 60 miles just to get here.  change of people surroundings feed is a lot dont want to stress them any more than necessary?

[woollyval]

Knowing the sheep and owner in question, I would say there will be no doubt that they are in lamb! Also she lambs her sheep very successfull in a low input setting. They are shetland types and so long as they are fed well, but not too well (good grass plus hay if necessary and approx half a mug of ewe nuts per ewe per day ) they will lamb fine and do well. I personally would not bother scanning......at this stage!

[horsemadmummy]

thanks for advice - did look up breed which suggests same ie they should do fine planning for next two weeks to let them have access to small paddock with barn doors open so they can wonder in and out am lucky enough that we took off some great haylage late last summer which plan to get them used to and feed once they come in doors plus already got ewe nuts sorted.  scan would have been useful if only to know if there were any twins to watch out for (in case we missed them).

as we are newbies want to try and be as organised as poss thats all - really excited about the ewes!

[lachlanandmarcus]

I reckon you'll be fine and if like my shetland experienced mums the first you will know is when you look in 5  mins after the last check and there are two gleaming white little wriggly faces peeping out at you from behind mum :-)))))

With Shetlands it's not like commercial ewes, if you feed shetlands as if they are all having a single (ie woollyshepherds half a mug max) then they will easily pop out the twins too and have plenty of milk.

Commercial ewes need scanning mainly cos they could have big twins or even triplets, which could mean birthing issues, rejections etc and also often are in a big herd where a bit of extra food for each ewe adds up to quite a bit of cash and where planning who to foster multiple lambs onto is important. Scanning does allow fine tuning of feeding but even some big herds dont bother and for shetlands feeding less rather than more will be fine, as long as they have licks, fresh water and grass/forage.

[daddymatty82]

we only got 50 shetlands. find out from the owner what the mothers tend to have as  most of ours have twins 99% of the time so know there offspring tend to do the same so ask advice from them aswell