New season’s lambs top expected prices

Press, 5 December 1989, Page 6

New season’s lambs top expected prices

By

DIANE KEENAN

New season’s lambs have topped the $3O a head pre-season expectations with medium weight lambs last week averaging $35.70 a head. Figures released yesterday by the. Meat and Wool Board’s Economic Service showed the return for a medium grade lamb with one kilogram of wool was 68 per cent higher than the depressed price of $21.15 in'the same week last year. The service’s director, Mr Rob Davison, said lamb slaughter weights to mid-, November were 25 per cent higher than last year. Lambs had averaged 14.45 kilograms whereas last year’s drought resulted in early season lambs being

slaughtered at 11.59 kg. “Without the drought there is less pressure to slaughter iambs,” he said. South Island lamb slaughterings to ■ mid-November at 535,000 were 66 per cent down on the same period last year. Mr Davison said there had been a 9.5 per cent drop in the number of lambs born in Canterbury and Westland this spring. The decrease to 9.5 million was because of a lower lambing percentage and fewer ewes mated. Nationally the 1989 lamb crop was estimated at 39.6 million, a drop of 5.2 million on the previous season. The largest decrease was in Hawke’s Bay. Southland was the only region with an increase.