Cold but fine weather great for farmers

Lamb numbers could be up on usual because of the good summer and autumn on farms which have resulted in record lamb scanning.

Ewes and cows were in good condition at mating and depending on the weather at lambing and calving, there could be record numbers that survive.

Federated Farmers Manawatu/ Rangitikei president, Richard Morrison said in spite of last week’s fine weather, the wet ground was still a problem.

‘‘People are getting a bit sick of trudging around in the mud.’’

He said stock condition and feed supply around the region seemed to be in pretty good shape.

‘‘People need to over allocate the feed though as up to 40 per cent could be trodden into the ground at feeding.’’

Morrison said animals needed to be moved on earlier than expected when it came to feeding on grass.

‘‘We scanned our ewes last week and had a record scanning percentage. This reflects the excellent summer and autumn. We need to prepare for the extra number of lambs expected this spring in terms of preferentially feeding multiple carrying ewes.’’

He said their results, from his Marton farm were 186 per cent scanning.

‘‘It means out of the 4800 ewes there were 9000 lambs. A good result - but we need to carefully manage 500 triplet bearing ewes.

‘‘Other farmers have had a lift in their scanning percentage this year.too.’’

Morrison said farmers doing it the hardest at the moment were the winter-milk suppliers.

Pasture growth and utilisation was running behind levels that most farmers expected in winter.

Andrew Hoggard who farms at Kiwitea in Manawatu, said it was not too wet there due to the free draining soils.

‘‘But utilisation for my dairy cows is definitely down on the wetter days.’’

Feilding-based farm adviser, Baker Ag’s Gary Massicks said it wasn’t taking much rain to make paddocks sodden again.

‘‘There is concern among farmers about the rain, but it is mid winter.’’

Otherwise, the grass was growing and stock looked well.

He had been told that ewe scanning was promising throughout the region and scanning could be up as much as 20 per cent.

‘‘Ewes were in good condition when they went to the ram. There were not the thin tailenders farmers would usually have.’’

Massicks said farmers had done the first part of the job as had been shown by good scanning but they still needed to attain high lamb survival.

‘‘We need good weather and the ewes, especially those carrying multiple lambs, need to be well fed.

‘‘More lambs carried means there needed to be better feed for Mum. What we do feed-wise over the next six weeks has a massive impact.

‘‘It is simple, the bigger the lambs, the better the survival.’’

Massicks said getting feed to ewes carrying twins or triplets was vital as the birth weights of multiples were generally down on single lamb weights.