The scanner is a device on the end of a cable and linked to a screen, all run from a car battery. There is a little ramp leading to a holding frame where each sheep stands off the ground, so that the person scanning can hold the device between the ewe's back legs and under her uterus.
Any lambs show up as little moving white blobs surrounded by black.. the black is either the space between them so the number can be counted, or may show that a ewe is empty. Our sheep are rather well fed, so it seems that we have rather too many triplets on the way....... we don't really want triplets at all, as a ewe is designed to have 2 lambs not 3. It can lead to one being left behind, as with Ellie for example, and if we take them off, its so much work.... we don't have enough singles to mother them all on, and of course it's a matter of timing as to whether this can be done anyway..... so at least we know?
Daisy May has been a bit under the weather, with a lack of appetite and a runny bottom.... we kept her inside with her best friend Socks, and a day of hay and water has sorted her out..... she's back outside and much better.
Ellie is doing so well....... she's getting fatter, and is now eating solids in the form of lamb nuts, with her mother Tabatha and the other ewes eating hay around her, she's cottoning on brilliantly!... She's also developing quite a vocabulary.. there's "hello" ...... there's "I'm very hungry now.. Feed Me!"... there is a murmur of "pick me up and love me" and her breathing changes to an almost inaudible little pant when she's being cuddled... so I match it and she goes to sleep........ its the same quiet noise I make to the ewe's..... it settles them when they're anxious and helps gain their trust. Don't know what I'm saying but its obviously no too rude!