Farmers bet on record survival rates

Life's always a gambol for lambs but warm spring weather has farmers betting on record survival rates this year.

Survival is a relative term of course, most of the lambs now frolicking around the country will be on British dinner tables by Christmas.

But the good conditions mean this season they are bigger and stronger than ever before.

North Island average carcass weights hit an all time high of nearly 21kg this month, according to Agri-fax.

Unfortunately, while the lambs were thriving, the fine conditions would not translate into record numbers, said Meat & Wool New Zealand economist Rob Davison.

"Conception rates weren't as good as last year because we had a dry autumn. But offsetting that we've had a marvellous spring for lambing."

Good weather was having a huge bearing on survival rates, said Federated Farmers Meat & Fibre chairman Ian Corney. A large amount of central North Island was just starting to get into the full swing of lambing but things were looking pretty good, he said.

Last year was a terrible spring with cold southerlies killing thousands of lambs.

Most sheep farmers were fairly optimistic, Corney said.

In the King Country it had been warm and for the past month and in the last few days there had even been a bit of warm rain, he said.

"That's ideal. It means ewes are lambing on to good grass and they'll milk well so you get good lamb growth." The increased size of the average lamb was partly to do with progress the industry had made in genetics and breeding, he said.

While the sheep population had fallen by 32 per cent since 1990, increased lambing percentages and heavier weights had led to an 11 per cent increase in the amount of sheepmeat exported.

Improvements were also down to the fact that farmers had had more money to reinvest in their farms over the past five years, Corney said.

Exports of lamb are worth about $2 billion.