Some lambs too fat

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33680, 1 November 1974, Page 12

Some lambs too fat

Farmers who put more weight on to their lambs this season to try to compensate to some extent for the much lower prices may meet trouble. A proportion of their lambs may be classified as over-fat and consequently be discounted in price.

Yesterday, out of 3712 • lambs killed at the Islington works of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, 227 were graded over-fat. The over-fats represented more than 6 per cent of the day’s kill. Last year at the same works up to November 24, by which time 177,604 lambs had been killed, over-fat lambs numbered only 101. The livestock manager of the company, Mr G. H. Steel, said yesterday that 25 lambs had been graded over-fat out of a line of 120 after the drafter had already left 57

on the property because he believed that they might be over-fat, and in another case where 30 were classified over-fat out of 130, another 30 had been left behind on the farm for the same reason.

Apart from a very good season for pasture growth and the tendency for farmers to hold their lambs back to put more weight on to them, another factor that could lead to more lambs being graded over-fat now is that the Meat Board has tightened the grading standards for over-fatness.

Now a prime lamb will be put into the over-fat classification if it has more than 16 millimetres of fat at the thickest point of the twelfth rib, whereas previously the maximum allowable fat thickness at this point was 18 millimetres.

The Canterbury Frozen Meat Company began killing for export at its Canterbury works at Belfast and also at Fairfield on Wednesday. On results of the first day’s kill, the general manager, Mr

D. Morten, said yesterday that the company was more than happy under present circumstances. At Fairfield 45 lambs were over-fat on Wednesday out of 2094, or just over 2 per cent, and at Belfast 21 out of 2244 were over-fat, or just under 1 per cent. Last year at the comparable date, by which time 106,000 lambs had been killed at the company’s works, only a few more than 300 had been put in the overfat class. The average weight of lambs killed by the company on Wednesday was more than 14 kilograms, which is nearly a kilogram and a half higher than at this stage last year. The penalty for overfatness is a substantial one. The standard prime 13 to 16 kilogram lamb, under the opening schedule in Canterbury, is worth 39.2 c per kilogram for its meat content. The comparable price for the meat of the over-fat lamb is 26.5 c.