Early lambs make an appearance

Lambs yesterday in the Maraekakaho-Kereru area west of Hastings, early lambs in a dry winter. Photo / Warren Buckland

Early lambs have begun appearing across the rural Hastings farming landscape in what is essentially a plus-and-minus situation for some farmers desperately looking to the skies for rain.

Rain which would restore dwindling growth and recharge the underground water supplies.

Federated Farmers Hawke's Bay president Will Foley said the greater Hastings rural region was annually at the top of the list for the first lamb arrivals due to the relatively mild climate - but that mild climate over the past few months had basically been too mild in terms of not delivering significant rain.

While the mild weather meant the survival of the early lambs was not an issue, it had created an issue for the feeding ewes.

"Our biggest concern is the amount of feed," Mr Foley said. "Once they have lambed the ewes have a high demand."

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The concern was over the amount of milk the ewes could produce during a time where the spread of grasslands in many areas were dry and minimal.

"Farmers are feeding out to try and keep up."

Mr Foley said for farmers in the Hastings region the earlier the better was how they viewed lambing as because of the mild climate June was a better time to lamb rather than late August, September and October when the region could be susceptible to storms and falling temperatures.

There was also the bonus of developing lambs which would be ready for the Christmas market, whereas lambs born in September and October would not be.

Lamb prices toward the end of the year and the build-up to Christmas were generally higher than prices post-Christmas.

"So these early arrivals capitalise on that Christmas market."

Lambing, however, was not due to kick in strongly across Central Hawke's Bay areas until late July and August, while farms in the foothills of the ranges could expect to be seriously lambing in September.

"Spring [for lambing] is still the general consensus but Hawke's Bay is one of the early ones because of the climate - this [June] is not common anywhere else."

The one unifying feature across the industry in most areas of the region however was that farmers simply want rain.

"We are struggling with the dry and, if we do not get decent rain, it will affect spring growth," Mr Foley said."

"Hastings is so dry - they just haven't had a break."

While soil moisture in the north of the region was just below median levels, there were areas across the plains and to the south, particularly the Hawke's Bay Regional Council monitoring sites at Bridge Pa and Ongaonga, where soil moisture was extremely low for the time of year.