Stock losses may be light

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33979, 21 October 1975, Page 1

Stock losses may be light

It seems likely that stock losses in the snow and rain at the weekend were not severe.

Stations in the Waimakariri , and Rakaia Gorge districts reported last evening that they had been affected little by the snow. But Mr R. L. Bennetts, a farm advisory officer with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at Darfield, said that the storm’s coming in the middle of lambing in the high country must have caused losses; it must have been hard on lambs bom within a few days of it Mr Bennetts said that there had also been a good many shorn sheep about, and he had heard of losses of a few of these. Although the storm was severe, there was a good thaw yesterday, and the snow was receding fast. Now all areas from the coast to the high country had encountered storms during lambing, Mr Bennetts said. But if the storm on Sunday was unwelcome where lamb-

ing was still in progress, it was welcome on the plains for the rain that it brought at a time when the country was beginning to dry up up again, particularly under a run of north-westerlies. Mr Bennetts said that the rain would delay some sowings of barley, and this might be harmful if conditions became dry later in the season when crops were reaching maturity.