Lower lambing percentage

On average, sheep and beef farmers achieved a lower lambing percentage in spring 2019 than in 2018, according to Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s (B+LNZ) Lamb Crop 2019 report.

B+LNZ’s economic service estimates the number of lambs tailed in spring 2019 decreased by 2.4 percent or 552,000 head on the previous spring to 22.7 million head. Most of the decline occurred in the South Island.

The lower number of lambs tailed in the South Island is expected to have reduced the number of lambs processed for export in the first quarter of the 2019-20 season, from October to December.

Lambs from ewe hoggets also fell, as fewer ewe hoggets were mated.

The number of adult sheep processed is expected to increase 9.2 percent from 3.4 million head in 2018-19 to 3.7 million head in 2019-20.

The lambing percentage was 127.1 percent, 1.5 percentage points lower than in spring 2018.

This means 127 lambs were born per hundred ewes, compared with an average of 123 over the prior 10 years. For spring 2019, a one percentage point change in the New Zealand ewe lambing percentage is equivalent to 170,000 lambs.

Andrew Burtt, chief economist of B+LNZ’s economic service, says that while the record high lambing percentage achieved in spring 2018 was always going to be difficult to match, after conditions were favourable overall that year, there were some regional declines that were a little surprising in spring 2019 and a reminder of the natural systems that farmers have to work with.

■ B+LNZ’s Lamb Crop 2019 report is available on the B+LNZ website www.beeflambnz.com