Canterbury lamb kill well back

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33454, 8 February 1974, Page 6

Canterbury lamb kill well back

The feature of the kill at Canterbury freezing works this season has been the decline in the number of lambs handled. Up until the week ending January 19 the lamb kill at the seven works in the province at 2.641 m was lower than at the same stage last season by 12 to 13 per cent. According to industry spokesmen there has not been the sustained pressure to kill lambs this season of other seasons. The season tended to be a little later than normal in getting under way with lambs being about two weeks behind schedule in reaching the slaughter stage. However according to Mr G. H. Steel, livestock manager of the New Zealand Refrigerating Companv, thev were very busy with lambs until the price schedule dropped in midNovember and then there was a lull until numbers began to build up again in early December and this pressure had continued until about the middle of last month. Mr G. R. Burling, stock buying manager of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, noted last week that pressure before Christ-

mas was late in building up and it was really not until the beginning of December that lamb killing was in full swing, and then after the holidays when a further period of heavy pressure might have been expected Mr Burling said that even then the pressure had not been acute, and immediately after killing was resumed a start was made to work some ewes into the kill. Now the lamb -till is tailing off again, and in the view of some industry representatives it is doubtful whether it will build up to sizable proportions again this season. Mr W. D. Douglas, manager of N.C.F. Kaiapoi Ltd, said this week that he felt that the Canterbury lamb kill this season could end up about 15 per cent down on last season. The decline in the lamb kill can be attributed to lower ewe numbers associated with drought conditions and a lower lambing after the drought conditions last autumn, and also losses of ewes and lambs in the August snow, with the heavy rain experienced at that time in coastal MidCanterbury. in particular, also resulting in serious losses of lambs. Meantime the sheep kill,

including ewes, is well up on this stage last season. At 212,100 at January 19 it was 95 per cent higher than a year earlier, but this does not necessarily mean that the ewe kill will end up ahead of last season’s big kill. It is rather a result of the shortfall in the lamb kill with ewes being handled earlier than last year. It is expected that the ewe kill will be less than last season when unbroken drought last summer and autumn and also very high prices for ewes caused heavy culling of flocks, but according to Mr Steel it is likely to be greater than anticipated. He sees two main reasons for this. One is that because of the impact of years of drought some ewes that would normally still have quite a lot of useful life in front of them have “packed up” and are having to be killed, and the other is that because of continued dry conditions people are unable to carry all of the stock that they would like to. Should conditions remain dry this autumn as they did last year, then the kill may not be a lot short of last season, but it seems unlikely it will reach that level. At present works are fully engaged killing ewes,

but these might also be expected to tail off in the not too far distant future. Not only is the lamb kill down this season. On average lambs are also weighing less than last year. At three of the four! works of the Canterburyi Frozen Meat Company the! average was recently 12.7 ■ kilograms while at Belfast! it was 12.8 kilograms. The average for the four works was 12.7 compared with 13 at the same stage last season. N.C.F. Kaiapoi also had a 12.7 average at January 26, which was almost lib lighter than last year, and at the New Zealand Refrigerating Company’s Islington works the average up to January 19 was 12.54 kilograms compared with 12.82 last season. However there have been' fewer fair average quality or second grade lambs. Canterbury Frozen Meat Company recently reported 23.8 per cent compared with 30.2 per cent at the same time last year, N.C.F. Kaiapoi 23 per cent com-: pared with 39 and Islington j 20.47 per cent compared with 26.46. In total the Canterbury sheep and lamb kill this season up to January’ 19 was 2.853 m, which was 81 per cent lower than a year previously.