Farmers in the lower half of the South Island are battling blizzard-like conditions and freezing temperatures as a cold snap sweeps across the island.
Bruce Eade who runs a 550-head dairy farm near Tapanui in Eastern Southland, said since Saturday afternoon the weatherhad been dreadful, with cold blasts, snow and plenty of rain.
“Since it started snowing since Saturday night we’ve had about eight inches, we’ve had a lot of rain as well so as the snow melts we’re getting a bit of flooding.
“Looking at the paddock now there’s only about six inches of fence post sticking out of the water.”
Eade said this was the biggest snowfall he had seen in 10 years and the weight of the snow caused huge damage to his open pen barn which is used to house 150 heifers in the winter.
At 10 am on Sunday morning, Eade discovered the roof had caved in.
“Thankfully we’ve had good weather so the calves and yearlings were still out on grass.
“I’d say the barn is a write-off really, the roof is touching the ground and it’s all bent and buckled, it’s about 60 metres long and I think there’s only 10 metres at one end that’s still standing.”
Eade said his power had been on and off which had made it difficult to milk the cows - but yesterday he said a generator was up and running - and he was out feeding the stock again.
Bruce Eade said damage to the barn means it might be a write off. Photo / Supplied / Bruce Eade
“It’s been a slog the last few days, you just come home at the end of the day and you’re just about too knackered to have a beer, I know I fell asleep on the sofa at 8 pm last night.”
Further north, Paul O’Malley who farms sheep and beef in Styx Valley at the head of the Maniototo Plain said conditions were terrible.
He said when feeding out on Sunday, he could hardly see the silage behind him.
“It was just blizzard-like conditions.”
Flooding and snow at Bruce Eade's farm in Tapanui, Southland. Photo / Supplied / Bruce Eade
Yesterday was “more sleety stuff but we’ve still got really cold, strong winds - it’s bloody miserable”.
He said there was about six inches of snow covering his farm - but the stock were doing fine.
“We are prepared, it’s winter so we are feeding out anyway, we’re a long way from shearing or lambing up in our valley so it’s not really a problem, I don’t mind winter in winter time - it’s when it comes in Spring when it causes the problems.”
Yesterday O’Malley said all he could really do was feed the stock - so it was lucky he had a heater in his tractor.
