Snow Was Bad Here Too

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31560, 23 December 1967, Page 8

Snow Was Bad Here Too

In the foothills behind Fairlie on the Sherwood Downs there is some snow every year, but Mr E. G. Butters, who farms 1000 acres 15 miles from Fairlie, has never seen the equal of last month’s storm on this country in more than 40 years in the district.

On his country, which ranges in altitude from 1800 ft to 2400 ft, there was 3ft 6in of snow at the homestead and 4ft further out.

When a bulldozer started to open up tracks to the stock on the Monday after the snow had started the previous Thursday there was not a very happy picture. About 10 of his herd of 170 cows were dead and another 18 died from the effects of starvation although some did recover with treatment. On a conservative basis Mr Butters said this week that his loss on these cattle would be about $2OOO. Mr Butters said he had observed that any of the cows which were caught near willow trees or native trees and had been able to get a bite during the storm had come through all right.

Until he has had a muster Mr Butters is not certain about his loss of sheep but he expects that it will run into 50 or 60 ewes and 80 or more lambs. Lambing had finished when the storm struck. Mr Butters said that after they got out of the snow some of the lambs, particularly the big ones, seemed quite stupid. Some drowned themselves and others would stand under the tractor.

On the 3000 acres property of Mr R. J. Swann, which is 12 miles from Fairlie and which ranges from 1500 ft to 4000 ft, the snow was 45 to 48 inches deep near the homestead and more than sft deep further out. Mr Swann said this week that a bulldozer driver had told him that there was as much snow here as at Tekapo. Mr Swann dug his way out to Fairlie on the Saturday and managed to get a bulldozer in to get to his stock on the Sunday. -x

He was near the end of lambing and calving at the time of the storm and his losses included nine breeding cows and about 15 lambs and about 65 sheep. He said it seemed that the best sheep and those that were in milk were those that were hardest hit by the storm.

A tractor and implement shed on the property collapsed and a new steel haybarn less than a year old buckled in the middle.

Mr Swann says that he is about $2OOO worse off as a result of the storm.

Before the storm the district was enjoying a particularly favourable season and Mr Swann, for instance, had 940 hoggets in on grazing from the Cannington district —only a few of those could not be accounted for after the storm. But now farmers are planning sowings of supplementary feed to, if necessary, carry lambs and calves.