For those farming families feeding orphan lambs this spring, spare a thought for Stu and Jacqui Dreaver and their three children, who are feeding 120.
Not that they see it as a chore, rather just another initiative to optimise productivity on their Owaka Valley farm.
Their orphan lamb numbers were bolstered after they bought their extra charges for $5 apiece from farmers in the area.
The family has been rearing lambs for the past few years and they sometimes reared up to 200.
They sold their first store lambs for $34 and questioned whether it was viable, but last year they averaged $100.
Not a bad effort, given they were "probably getting everyone's 5% of lower stock", Mr Dreaver said.
The lambs were initially housed in an indoor 20m grow-house, before being weaned on to grass, bolstered with supplementary feed.
While the lambs had slower growth rates than those still with their mothers, they caught up eventually, he said.
The Dreavers, who run about 1200 ewes and 100 cattle on their property, were also trying to recover a few losses of their own after a "polar blast" which hit early on in lambing.
It was also a social time when they dropped lambs off and viewed the operation. While it was a busy time of year, the family enjoyed the project.
Sam (14) milked five cows and his siblings Kaitlyn (9) and Matthew (7) were also heavily involved.
Their first lamb arrived in June from "an anonymous farmer" and they had been "plugging away" since then, with some already weaned on to grass. More arrivals were expected over the next couple of weeks after hogget lambing.
Earlier this week, Mr Dreaver had music playing in the grow-house and the lambs were "jumping around". Asked about their preferences in music, he laughed - "really heavy music; they'll handle anything".
There was an "amazing" assortment of lambs - "everything you can imagine" - but it was stud Cheviot lambs that were their favourites.
"They look like little rabbits," he said.
With good prices being achieved for lambs, and which looked set to continue, Mr Dreaver believed there could be a few more opportunities for similar ventures.
Last year, proceeds from the lambs paid for the grow-house, which grew tomatoes and vegetables when the lambs left.
"We've got our little paradise down here," he said.
