Small Lamb Pickings in a Backward Fattening Season

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18551, 10 November 1934, Page 13

Small Lamb Pickings in a Backward Fattening Season

INDIVIDUAL fat lamb drafts to the Kaiti freezing works so far this season are particularly small, and pickprs in some instances have had diflieultv in making up satisfactory numbers.

Instances are quoted of pickers taking only 25 or 30 per. cent of the lambs farmers have picked out as being suitable, even though lambs ,do\vn to 2-1 lb. are being selected in many cases. Frequently, farmers have set aside 100 or 150 lambs which the owners believed were ready tor the works, but out of which the pickers have been able to select only 2;> or n(), or perhaps 70 or 80 from a line of 200.

At the commencement of the fattening season, it was believed that conditions would be suitable for an early .start, and arrangements were made to have the freezing works opened in ,<Bhow week. This was later postponed a week, and even then only two days’ killings were accomplished. This week, commencing on Tuesday, was a fairly full one. and arrangements were made to kill from L>,()00 to 1(5,000 lambs in readiness for the Waiwera shipment, but bookings for .next; week were indefinite. Not only have the lambs so far been .light, on the general run, but they ,Imvc not filled out as they should, a .lack of quality being noticed in many localities. «

Hawke’s Bay experience has been somewhat similar. Large drafts, averaging .out over the 321 b. mark, ’have been well nigh impossible to obtain in Hawke’s Bay, and the season is one of the most difficult from the viewpoint of the drafter that has been experienced for many years, since, in numbers of cases, the lambs are not killing out in conformity with their appearance .and feel when drafted. Some stations in Hawke’s Bay which usually send 1000 lambs or more away by the first two boats have only drafted a few hundred this season. On one property, which sent away nearly 2000 fat lambs in its first draft last season, the buyer this year went out at the usual time, and, after going through 1300, had picked 170 only. In consequence, it was decided to leave the handling of the rest until the next boat.

Weather and. feed have both had a marked effect on the situation, and in many hill-country districts the lambs are still decidedly backward. There are one or two areas about the district upon which the lambs have done •better, and which have been well worked by the buyers in the course of the past couple of weeks.