Falling lamb numbers and 7 day a week calf processing

Changing land use has seen changes at the processing end with the lamb kill ending early in some South Island works, as a result of the spring storms in Southland, and also the swing to dairy in that region.

Union officials believe it will take years to get numbers back up to previous levels, and many workers report the shortest season ever. Numbers indicate that over capacity is still an issue in sheep processing, as the closure of the Waipukurau plant reveals.

However to cope with  the large supply of bobby calves in the incoming spring season Silver Fern Farms has pledged to kill bobby calves 7 days a week in the peak of the season. Tight supply of work for this workforce has allowed this situation to be achieved, allowing better animal welfare standards to be met by farmers and a better quality product produced.

While a significant lift is expected in the number of lambs born this year, it will take "years" to get back to previous levels, New Zealand Meat Workers Union Otago-Southland secretary Gary Davis says. Lamb production in the South Island - nearly three-quarters through the meat export year - is running 11% behind last year reports The ODT.Given the "awful" spring last year, including a storm which claimed a million lambs on Otago and Southland farms, it was about where it was expected to be, Beef and Lamb New Zealand's economic service executive director, Rob Davison, said.The "real unknown", particularly in the North Island, was what the lamb kill would be in the September quarter, Mr Davison said.

The Alliance Group's Lorneville plant has shut for the season, which livestock general manager Murray Behrent attributed to two factors: the lack of lambs after the storm, and store lamb prices.Instead of holding on to lambs to kill them, farmers had taken the high store lamb price and sent them north to Canterbury farmers. The number of lambs sent north had probably doubled, he said. While it was a shame for meat workers, Lorneville's closure was probably only a week earlier than usual, Mr Behrent said. It had been a year that was unusual. Meat Workers Union members had had one of the shortest seasons on record and Mr Davis said he felt for those people who had not had a job this year.

Two South Island Silver Fern Farms meat plants will begin processing bobby calves seven days a week during the peak of the season this year. Seven-day-a-week processing is due to begin at the end of July at the Waitane plant, on the outskirts of Gore, and at the Fairton plant, Ashburton reports The ODT. Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper said farmers had alerted the company to the fact they ran a seven-day-a-week business and it needed to cater for that.

Silver Fern Farms' new approach would provide extra work during the winter, a traditionally slow period for meat workers, he said. Processing seven days a week also meant farmers would not have to carry bobby calves over the weekend, reducing the risk of oversupply and poor welfare standards, Mr Cooper said. Despite strict rules around care, dealing with bobby calves could often be time-consuming and frustrating, making it difficult for farmers to maintain welfare standards at a high level, he said.