Hawke's Bay: Stock sales to resume at Stortford Lodge

Auctioneer and PGG Wrightson Livestock area manager Neil Common at a Stortford Lodge sale three years ago. Photo / File

Stock sales return to the ring and pens of Stortford Lodge in Hastings on Thursday after a Covid-19 shutdown which not even the two world wars could match in the history dating back to the 1800s.

Owned by stock firm PGG Wrightson Livestock, the first sale in seven weeks is expected to yard about 400 cattle and 4000 sheep, mainly lambs, said company area livestock manager Neil Common.

But the Covid-19 alert level 2 limits will be in place for the human component, with Common saying only intending buyers and those involved in running the sale and transporting stock should be present.

He said there would be little need for the attendance of vendors, who will be mainly from Hawke's Bay, from Porangahau in the south to Kotemaori in the north.

Thus while counting sheep, and cattle, is everyday practice at Stortford Lodge, people will now also be counted, with everyone present having to provide details for contact tracing.

With the cattle sale starting at 10.30am, and the sheep sale an hour later, Common said it would resume with a "moderate" sale for farmers with stock "lying around" which need to be offloaded because of the impacts of a drought which has given much of the region below average rainfall for more than six months in a row.

He is confident about the future of sales at Stortford Lodge, with stock numbering improved across recent seasons, despite the competition from online sales platforms. He said there is no intention to close the yards, which he said have the second-biggest throughput of the stock yards throughout New Zealand.