RECORD ACTIVITY AT HOROTIU

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14569, 13 January 1948, Page 3

RECORD ACTIVITY AT HOROTIU

HEAVY FAT LAMB KILLINGS

53,000 Handled Last

Week

New Daily Peak Expected

At Works

(P.A.) Hamilton, today. Fat lambs from farms as far distant as the Bay of Plenty and the King Country are arriving at the rate of about 10,000 a day at the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Company’s Horotiu works near Hamilton, where new records in killing for export to Britain are beingmade.

This is the peak of the lambkilling season, and 700 men at the works, as well as dozens of lorry drivers, are working overtime to cope with the rush.,, Last week almost v 5.6,000 lambs were killed in five and a-half working days. The figure beat the previous weekly record, established last year, by 9000. The largest day’s killing was 10,462 a week ago. This is about equivalent to the record last year, but before the end of this week a new daily peak is likely to be reached.

Horotiu. the only freezing works between Westfield and Waitara, in Taranaki, is today one of the busiest in the country. Every morning the two acres of pens are packed with lambs that have poured in the previous afternoon and night by train and heavy lorry. The rush continues until about 11 o’clock at night, and the lorry drivers are working from before sunrise until well after dark on the long hauls. One driver recently worked three days without taking time off to sleep. Not only are the rich grazing lands of the Waikato served by the works, but lambs from as far away as Tancatua, Rotorua and Te Kuiti arc being delivered there. Railway trucks are used for the Bay of Plenty districts, and doubledecker lorries carrying up to 160 lambs cover most of the other areas.