May finish for lamb chains

South Canterbury freezing works are still looking at a May finish for the lamb chains reports The Timaru Herald. Low lamb numbers have seen the three freezing works operating on reduced hours for the last month. It is likely to be a similar story through to the end of the killing season. Alliance's Pukeuri works manager, Danny Hailes, said the two remaining lamb chains had had a couple of non-kill days and there had been some "short-hour" days. The plant had not operated as many six-day weeks as it had last season. The lamb chains usually worked to the end of May and at this stage it was looking likely they would operate through to early May. The beef processing plant had been running double shifts since early last month. Staff are still on reduced hours at Alliance's Timaru Smithfield plant. Plant manager Dick Allen said, the plant was still operating about two-thirds of normal capacity.The situation had not changed in the last month with most staff losing a day's pay each week.Staff were still working shorter hours because of the low number of stock being killed, meaning pay reductions of about 30 per cent.No change had been made to staff numbers, but the reduced kill was affecting the pay packets of about 380 of the plant's 470 staff. At the end of February the lamb kill was down 11 %  in the South Island and 8 % in the North Island. Last year's drought was blamed for the reduced stock numbers.