Page image
Page image

29

L—sc

of four weeks. To his surprise, when first seen it was found that the greater part of them had taken shelter among the rocks, and although absolutely starving they had managed (or the bulk of them) to survive. His loss, therefore, he thinks, will not be more than, say, 300. J. Noone, Small Grazing-run 244; 1,701 acres; 850 sheep: With the freehold and the feed grown on it Mr. Noone was in a position to bring his sheep to the turnips and hay, so that the loss suffered will not be more than forty or fifty, and of these half should be allotted to freehold. Miss Noone occupies the largest section of the Highfiold Block, 2,536 acres. Had 850 — 750 ewes and 100 hoggets. So far about forty dead, and a good many weak and dying. F. D. Bell; Ida Valley Station; 20,500 sheep: Ewes, 7,000; hoggets, 4,500; dry sheep, 9,000. 18 in. of snow The greatest loss has been among the hoggets, and of these it only amounts to a small percentage. All the ewes appear to be practically right. Wethers seem also to be right, with the exception of 2,000 which have not yet been seen. There were about 3,000 sheep hand-fed, for which all the hay on the station was required, and nearly ,£5O was expended in the purchase of more. Estimated loss, 5 per cent. T. Spain, the holder of a large block under lease in perpetuity (say, 2,000 acres), is the owner of 1,500 sheep of various classes and ages. As in other parts, the snow fell to a depth of from 18 in to 20 in. Shortly after the snowfall Mr. Spain commenced to feed with hay, which he fortunately had stored for such an emergency. Up to the present he has continued to supply the stock with hay. Even under these circumstances he estimates his loss at 300. The death-rate be attributes to the dry feed without turnips or even water to counteract this, and also to the ewes being near lambing. J. Davidson; 1,300 acres; 320 merino ewes : These were purchased last year from the Hawkdun (lock—i.e., the culls at 4s. 6d. He has skinned up to the present forty, and may lose a few more. J. Lobb; 270 ewes, of which thirty-eight have already died: Anticipates a further loss of, say, another thirty —besides these, lambs. T. Stephens and Mrs. Stephens; number of sheep grazed, 400: Seventeen have already been skinned, and to keep wethers alive it has been found necessary to use about 11 tons of oaten sheaves, and as only 1 ton is left, it will be necessary to buy horse-feed. A reduction in rent is asked. W. J. McCready; 6,000 sheep; Pastoral License No. : Freehold, 2,000 acres. The bulk of these sheep or all the ewes (3,000) were on freehold and had to be fed all this time. The dry sheep were all on the lower faces of the run and had to find feed on best points among the snow. Mr. McCready, immediately after the snowfall, went among the flock and relieved them as miioti as possible. Eight days after the snow fell a breeze bared some of the northern faces, and this enabled Mr. McCready and his men to bring in as many as they could find on to the bare country and thus save them from starvation. His loss will be considerable, but the number he is unable to estimate. (t. Hille; Runs 3 and 4, Kurow; small grazing-run, 9,400 acres: Mr. Hilie occupies the old Kurow Station homestead, with 160 acres of the original pastoral run. Apart from this the carrying-capacity of the run is from 1,800 to 2,000 at present, and at the time the snow fell Mr. Hille had only 1,300 sheep. Of these about 600 are breeding-ewes and 700 wethers. All were up on the high country at the time the snow fell, and had to remain where they were snowed ; n until the wind cleared some of the faces about eight days afterwards. They were then snowraked on to the bare faces. Mr. Hille is still unable to make an estimate. He thinks, however, that 10 per cent, will at present cover his loss. At the same time he guards himself by saying that there may be a good many smothered in the drifts. William McAughtrie; temporary grazing-right; 6,400 acres: The carrying-capacity is about 2,000. The number now grazing is 900. Of these there are 417 ewes, 300 wethers, and, say, 200 lambs. Of the above a few of the old ewes have died. Hoggets have suffered slightly, and a few more of these will die as they appeared to have eaten some of each other's wool. The wethers will not suffer greatly judging from those so far found, as they have come in strong and in good condition. The fact of the country being understocked greatly helped the limited number grazing on it, all being in first-class condition. D. Matheson ; Run 243; 12,168 acres and small grazing-run: The number of sheep now depasturing on the run is 8,000 —ewes 5,600, balance principally hoggets. The greater part of the former were kept well down on the sunny faces, and where the snow fell were fortunately on the lowest part of the run. In about six days these faces were cleared on the lower portions, and sheep were able to get a " picking "of grass and scrub. About a thousand ewes were in a block which held the snow much longer, and of this lot Mr. Matheson anticipates a considerable shortage. Up to the present 210 of these have been skinned and 169 of the other ewes. Of the 2,400 hoggets and young wethers, although on the higher part of the run, they have escaped very well, and, so far, only about a hundred have been found dead. The above shows the actual mortality to date, but Mr. Matheson anticipates a considerable loss between this and shearing, partly through weakness and also by the discovery of dead sheep among the drifts. • Omarama Station; Lady Young and Dalgety, pastoral licensees: Carrying-capacity approximately 40,000 sheep, made up as follows : 16,000 ewes, 17,000 wethers, and 7,000 hoggets, &c. So far as the country already seen is concerned, the loss does not seem to be so great as at first anticipated. The greater part of this flock happened to be well down from the actual mountain-tops, although, equally fortunately, not on the lower flats —that is, the middle levels or faces below a certain altitude either did not have such a heavy snowfall or more quickly showed some " black faces," and this, along with the fact that there was a little snow-grass tussock, enabled the sheep to weather it until the thaw came. As in many other cases which have come under our notice, the hoggets suffered most, while the ewes came out of the trouble somewhat better than the others. A great deal of feed grown on the station for some years back was cut into chaff and served out to the horses and rams (340); 350 cattle were also fed with oat and grass hay. The approximate loss will Le not more than 7,000.

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert