85,000 lambs killed

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33932, 27 August 1975, Page 16

85,000 lambs killed

Last week's wet. cold weather killed about 85,000 lambs in Mid and North Canterbury.

This was over and above the losses usual at this time of the year the manager of Slink Skins (Mid-Canterbury), Ltd (Mr N. G. Cornelius) said yesterday. Since the company began collecting dead lambs this season on Julv 28, 211,000 had been collected up to Monday evening in the area between the Rangitata River and Waiau. and including Banks Peninsula. The skins are removed from the dead lambs at Fairfield for export. Japan and the Lebanon are the main markets, but some also go to Australia. There is also an increasing local demand. The market is decribed as a developing one. The best skins are used in fur-lined garments; lesser grades in gloves and light grades for pharmaceutical purposes.

Mr Cornelius said that his firm derived no pleasure from having to collect such large quantites of dead lambs. Even after sending some of the dead lambs to other processing plants at Waimate and in Southland, the company could not handle all of them.

Thirty skinners — double the normal number — have been working at Fairfield. Mr Cornelius praised them and the labourers at Fairfield and also the collectors — the transport operators in the various districts — who worked from daylight to dark in . atrocious conditions gathering the carcases. Some of them brought in seven or eight loads of dead lambs a day.

Ellesmere, Bankside and Pendarves were among areas to record heavy losses. Many farmers had lost between 250 and 400 lambs in the storm, Mr Cornelius said. Some lost half of those born.