A reasonable lamb drop with good survivability should be reason to celebrate, but with farmers already cutting stock numbers by 20% to 30% to manage their feed, there were fewer ewes lambed.
Furthermore, a mild winter has yet to restore ground moisture and pasture loadings are still tight with no excess feed in the region.
A Waiau farmer whose family has kept weather records since 1913 has tracked last summer as the worst for rainfall on the farm, and this year is shaping up to be a record breaker for all the wrong reasons.
Until this year, 1998 was the worst start on the farm, with 12mm between January 1 to April 30, at only 41% of average rainfall.
Last summer just 90mm was recorded (at 28%), and the 429mm of total rainfall to September 30 is 57% of the 990mm average. This was worse than, in order, 2001, 2015, 1998 and 1988.
Some parts of North Canterbury are getting to the end of lambing after starting in mid to late August, while properties on steeper hills started later.
North Canterbury Federated Farmers meat and wool chairwoman and Marble Point Station farmer Sara Black said few farmers would be flourishing, and they were managing their feed supply and demand.
"Farmers are still worried and apprehensive about being at the whims of the weather. Even though they’ve had a mild winter they are still anxious about the season ahead, and we aren’t back to where we should be for rainfall, and winter and spring is when we bank all that moisture and generally go dry.
"It feels like another drought isn’t far away and we hope for rain."
She said the forecast for the next few months was expected to be warmer and drier than normal. and farmers were headed into them with extremely low moisture levels.
"I spoke to another farmer today who suggested that we were over 200mm behind on where we’d expect to be over winter alone. You can appreciate that farmers continue to anxiously await the next few months."
Culverden farmers report receiving nearly 283mm for the year to the start of this month, when the 30-year average for these nine months is 436mm.
"Keep in mind a lot of ewes scanned back on previous years, and there were reports of 20% to 30% back on last year, so there just isn’t as many lambs or stock on farms.
"So there’s less mouths to feed for what’s there and it was pretty much a standing start. The feed is growing, the ground is warm and the grass is coming away, but I wouldn’t say we were inundated with feed by any stretch of the imagination and we’re still in catch up mode.
"As the wild spring weather comes through we’ve had a few days of warm weather and then gusty nor’west days and it doesn’t take much to dry things out again."
She and her husband Matt run the 2400ha station between Hanmer and Culverden on mostly steep hill country in an equity farming partnership with 4100 Corriedale ewes and 430 Angus beef cattle.
Mrs Black said the station was having a reasonable lambing after starting on September 20 and were now into their second cycle.
"Most people have tailed or are tailing at the moment so there are plenty of lambs on the ground. Most people have had reasonable survivability. We have been incredibly lucky we haven’t had any extreme events, but it has been reasonably dry and we have only picked up a bit of rain here and there.
"Where we are we catch a little bit of the spill-over from the West Coast so we have managed to accumulate about 15mm [in early October], but areas around Hawarden and Waikari that intermittent rain doesn’t go that far so they have seen 3mm to 4mm and it’s still reasonably dry and feed is reasonably tight."
She said fewer lamb deaths would hopefully help to claw back lower numbers.
Improving soil moisture has yet to take farmers out of a drought declared as a medium-scale adverse event last March.
Mrs Black said eight months was a long time to hold on when farmers knew they were approaching the driest part of the farming year even though it was a La Nina forecast.
Spring was the window to collect as much rain as possible as some North Canterbury areas typically began to dry out before Christmas, she said.
"I would say we are quite a lot drier than [this time] last year. Last year coming out of winter it was dry in early September but then we had a whole heap of rain in a cold spring and there was quite a delay for farmers trying to work their paddocks after winter grazing.
"I know we had a couple of paddocks at home we couldn’t get into until the start of November because they were just too wet whereas coming out of winter this year I think 80% of the land we had in crop could be direct drilled without having to work up."
Marble Point put 4200 ewes to the ram and have since sold the dries so now have 4080 lambing after being back 16% in scanning from last year. Ewes with their lambs are set stocked in the hills, with tailing due to start next month and weaning late January.
The station is a breeding and finishing operation, with the Blacks generally managing to finish all of them.
Mrs Black said cattle prices were continuing to hold well with beef prices holding strong at the Cheviot spring cattle sale, and lamb prices are understood to likely be better than first expected. Farmers would not have realised these prices yet as the earliest lambs will be weaned in December.
She said farmers had been watching the Reserve Bank cutting the official cash rate closely, and talking to their bank managers about their mortgage arrangements to relieve pressure.
"I’d say for most farmers it was a loss-making year, and this year maybe another one ... The commentators seem to be talking about holding on until lamb prices come right which might be in 2026, which seems an awfully long way away."
