Now that we are into drier weather, farmers can begin the task of clearing-up after the winter storms and floods that wreaked havoc across Scotland.

Drystane dykes and fences have been flattened or washed away, while thousands of metres of fencing that remain is entangled with tons of flood debris and leaning over. With stones scattered across the fields or washed away, some of those dykes may never be re-built.

Then there is all the damage to river banks and flood banks. I know of a local dairy farm situated on low-lying land between two rivers that had their flood banks breached in several places. That resulted in his farm buildings being flooded one morning with water up to the bellies of his dairy cows.

In a rescue operation involving neighbours with tractors and livestock trailers, the herd was transported to other farms and subsequently sold. The cost of repairing those flood defences will be exorbitant, and could take the rest of the summer.

Responding to the unprecedented damage inflicted on flood banks, the Scottish Government set aside £1m to fund a grant scheme to assist those farmers whose flood banks were damaged in the storms between 5 December 2015 and 9 January 2016. That money will be helpful, but as there is a £20,000 cap on individual awards, the dairy farmer I have just cited will still be well out-of-pocket.

While some arable farmers had top soil washed off their fields, many are suffering from the less obvious damage caused by nutrient losses through leaching. Autumn sown crops may also have suffered from having stood in waterlogged soils that will have damaged their roots, or even killed the plants. The resulting reduced root mass will limit the crops' ability to grow and make them susceptible to drought conditions, or lodging (going flat) nearer harvest.

Those crops growing on free-draining soil that was not flooded have grown well during the mild winter. Weeds have also grown well and many growers will be keen to spray their crops with herbicides at the earliest opportunity. As always, the mild winter has also led to an increase in fungal diseases that will also need to be sprayed, as well as bugs and pests like slugs.

Livestock farmers have fared better during the storms, although tragically some lost sheep through drowning. As with crops, the mild weather has encouraged grass to keep on growing during the winter months and sheep have benefited from that extra bite. Indeed, lambs have fattened well and many producers got them away to market several weeks earlier than usual.

Prime hoggs - what we call lambs after the turn of the year - are becoming scarce and some auctioneers are struggling to canvass enough for their weekly sales. As always, scarcity is pushing up prices and putting smiles back on the faces of those fortunate enough to still have some left to sell.

Many sheep breeders have now pregnancy-scanned their flocks, and the results, while mixed, are encouraging.

In general, ewes are carrying slightly more twins than usual, but some scan operators have detected a higher barren rate among young hill sheep, particularly gimmers (maiden sheep due to lamb for the first time at two years of age).

A skilled scan operator can determine if a sheep is barren as a result of re-absorbing their foetuses and it would appear that has been the cause of the increased barren rate - probably as a result of the windy, wet weather in the run up to Christmas. That's Mother Nature's way of protecting the life of the gimmer in difficult weather conditions at the expense of her developing foetus.

Another worrying feature revealed by scanning has been the small number of producers who have an unusual high number of barren sheep in a batch as a result of one or more rams not working properly or being infertile. Many put that down to the popular practice of feeding large amounts of concentrated feed to rams in the run up to the autumn sales. Powerful, big, force-fed rams may look a picture in the sale ring and attract a flurry of high-priced bids, but in many cases all that feed will have impacted on their libido and fertility.

Now that flocks have been scanned, those that are expecting twins and triplets can be separated from those carrying singles and given preferential treatment, while older, barren ewes can be sold.