Tens of thousands of sheep are queuing for urgent shearing as Hawke's Bay endures one of its longest wet stretches in recent times.
With little shearing taking place in the last week, the situation has been highlighted by shearing contractor Colin Watson Paul, of Flaxmere-based Shearing NZ, who has about 18 shearers ready to go, among shed staff totalling more than 30 people waiting to shear an estimated 30,000 sheep which have backed-up in the rain.
Many are ewes urgently needing pre-lamb shearing and others include hoggets which may head for the meatworks without being shorn, he said on Monday, fearing that, based on latest forecasts, there would be little or no sheep shorn for a second week in a row.

The situation, a typically wet late-June and early-July after a drought amid seven months of below-average rainfall, and shearing delays caused by the Covid-19 crisis had him comparing the new wet with conditions as long ago as 23 years.