Wintry Storm At Lamb Time

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32383, 24 August 1970, Page 1

Wintry Storm At Lamb Time

The wintry storm at the week-end •_ with high winds and rain on Saturday and during Saturday night caught some farmers in the thick of lambing.

A Mid - Canterbury farmer, who is about half-way through the lambing of his ewe flock, said that the extent of losses on a farm would be dependent on the amount of help that a farmer had to keep his flock in shelter.

The man who was working on his own might have lost a lot at the week-end, he said. This farmer had to pick up about 30 dead lambs yesterday morning, but he said that happily there were many left

While it was still cold yesterday, he said, conditions were much better because it was dry. It was a help when stormy conditions did not persist for long. In the Waipara district a farmer whose lambing began last week said that he had been fortunate that only about 20 lambs were born a day so that it had been possible to bring ewes that had lambed and their offspring into a shed. They had had' only about three losses out of about 40 to 50 born. But he said that anyone with 100 lambs arriving a day might not have been in such a favourable position. Some farmers in his district had finished their lambing, he said, but others were just starting. Another farmer in the Sheffield district was congratulating himself yesterday because he had had only one death out of about 33 born overnight, although his sheep were not in very well sheltered paddocks. Wellington Winds Wellingtonians buttoned up their overcoats or stayed indoors at the week-end as icy hailstorms lashed the city. The midday temperature was 43 degrees, and varied little all day. A biting southerly gusted up to 67 knots. The backlog of passengers caused by the closing of the airport on Saturday until 3 J)

p.m. has been sorted out. Both trans-Tasman and internal flights were affected. Yesterday morning, a 17ft yacht broke its moorings at Evans Bay and drifted ashore. The police launch, Lady Elizabeth, towed it to new moorings. In Christchurch, the midday temperature was 37 degrees and in Dunedin, 41 degrees. The Meteorological Service forecasts scattered showers again today but with increasing fair periods.