Temperate conditions lift lamb numbers for farmers

Doug Catherwood is enjoying the moment.

When you're a hardy Canterbury farmer accustomed to plucking dead spring lambs out of the snow, times like this don't come around too often.

A mild winter and early spring is delivering bumper results on the 4000ha farm he runs with his wife, Jocelyn, and a farmhand, about 50km inland from Christchurch.

And it's good news, too, for New Zealand's economy.

"It's just been perfect right through late winter. Animal health has been good and it's just led on and on," said Mr Catherwood.

"The clover growth has been phenomenal - it's probably a month ahead of usual. The volume of feed is the best I have seen in my farming lifetime."

Last September, hundreds of thousands of new-born lambs were wiped out when bitterly cold storms struck the South Island, but so far this season there have been virtually no lamb deaths.

"Sometimes you can get a really good lambing but be short of feed by the end of lambing. This year we have got both. So we sort of wonder where the poisoned chalice is."

Mr Catherwood reckons he will have anything between 5 and 10 per cent more lambs than his average over recent years.

He started lambing last month and is set to cash in on the premium market for exports.

As good as his present situation is, Mr Catherwood is mindful of the flipside of a dry, mild winter: the possibility of drought.

Groundwater and river levels are at record lows in many parts of the South Island. Mr Catherwood is already irrigating and is concerned about the falling water levels.