Midwifery skills transfer from humans to sheep

Lana Best
By Lana Best
Tasmanian Country
01 Feb 2025
Samara Robinson

SAMARA Robinson is getting ready to start her third season of sheep pregnancy scanning and the growing business is starting to pay back the huge investment she made in both time, education and equipment. 

As a midwife of more than 20 years at Launceston General Hospital, and a mother of four boys, you would think looking at baby scans would be enough, but when she mentioned jokingly to a colleague that she could transfer her skills from humans to the sheep industry, and help her husband Dan who has managed sheep farms at Westwood and Blessington, the thought wouldn’t leave her mind. 

“I was thinking of doing some extra study anyway, and then I found a one-week course I could attend in NSW,” she said. 

“It was a bit of a risk because it required a $30,000 investment in the equipment before doing the course and we’ve probably spent another $20,000 in setting up the trailer since then.” 

The business has been building up slowly each season, taking the pressure off the one other local and several interstate scanning experts who are swamped from the beginning between April and August each year in Tasmania. 

Most jobs are on big farms with several hundred or thousands of sheep and the pregnancy check proves invaluable for feed management. 

“If they know if the ewes are dry, carrying one or multiple lambs, they can mark and separate them out and work out whether they need premium feed or not and where to graze them on the farm. 

“I don’t mind the fact that it takes me away from my other job, it balances it up and I like to imagine all the little lambs when they’re finally born,” she said. 

The ewes run through a race into the trailer, are held in a crate while the scan is completed and depart out the other side. 

Scans are done 84 days after the rams go in, and Samara can get through about 1200 in a day. 

Her clientele continues to grow, including scanning the Trefusis stud ewes for Georgina Wallace, a sign of trust and confidence. 

“I love it, I’m passionate about it and I’m learning a lot. It’s actually fun,” she said. 

“I get to see all the lambs popping out next door on Elverton where Dan works and I see the twins popping out in the twin paddock and I know that I got them right.”

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