Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s Economic Service says the signals are there that the sheep flock is stabilising following three consecutive years of dramatic decline.
A 2.5 per cent increase in total sheep numbers to 33.20 million head at 30 June 2010 has been driven by the retention of hoggets, up 10.4 per cent on the previous year on both breeding and finishing farms.
Whilst rebuilding of the flock slowly takes place following the droughts in recent years, the ewe flock is still 16.6 per cent lower than five years ago.
B+LNZ Economic Service executive director Rob Davison says the annual stock number survey, which establishes the productive base of livestock for 2010-11, shows sheep numbers increased by 3.3 per cent (+0.53 million) in the North Island and 1.8 per cent (+0.29 million) in the South Island.
“The increase in total sheep numbers is driven mainly by the retention of hoggets. Fewer hoggets were kept in previous years as farmers sold off ewe hoggets for cashflow. Also, farmers are expecting good returns for store two-tooths in the coming season, based on strong ewe prices last sum
Mr Davison says early indications suggest this spring’s total lamb crop will be back on last year’s by around 0.71 million lambs (-2.5 per cent).
“This decrease will come from a slight drop in breeding ewes (-0.6%) to 22 million, with North Island numbers down 1.2 per cent and South Island numbers remaining static. There will also be fewer lambs born per 100 ewes due to scanning results back 5-10 percentage points and poorer ewe condition heading into lambing likely to affect lamb survival. However, as always, the final judge for the actual lamb crop will be the weather this spring.
“With this year’s lamb crop likely to be back on last year’s, it is expected that the number of lambs to be available for export will be around 21.4 million, similar to the export year just ending.”
Meanwhile, beef cattle numbers at 30 June 2010 decreased 4.3 per cent to 3.92 million. North Island numbers decreased 3.7 per cent and South Island numbers 5.9 per cent. The major decrease occurred amongst finishing cattle from the tight feed supplies for cattle in many regions and a switch back towards lamb finishing which has become more profitable over the last two seasons.
Beef breeding cows increased 3.7 per cent to 1.14 million as some rebuilding of the beef herd takes place on the hill country.
Mr Davison says the South Island dairy herd increased an estimated 4.7 per cent, while the North Island increased 1.2 per cent. Overall the national dairy herd growth has slowed to an estimated 2.4 per cent for the year to 30 June 2010.
This was largely restricted by the dry conditions in Northland and North Waikato, finance being more difficult to source for conversion and large growth in dairy cow numbers (+6.06) experienced in the previous year.
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