Southland farmers are bracing themselves for further stock losses as more bad weather batters the deep south.

High winds are expected to drive temperatures below zero again, after weekend snow took a huge toll on new lambs.

Federated Farmers adverse events spokesperson David Rose farms near Winton. He says his increased lambing percentage this season has effectively been wiped out.

“I would say at least 10 to 15%, which is a big hit."

"It’s turned what was going to be record lambing into probably below average lambing."

Mr Rose says the storm couldn’t have come at a worse time.

"Those affected worst, nearer the coast, their numbers will be higher, but we work 24/7, doing what we can, but the weather beat us really.

"It’s 90% of sheep farmers income comes from our lamb, for some people it could be enough to take all their profit, really.”

Federated Farmers President Don Nicolson is also a Southlander, he says farm work has ground to a halt since the dump.

“I can lose sheep even on a fine day, with twins, triplets or quads if they’re not right metabolically, it’s the way farming is.

"But when you have snow for three days straight, and you’ve never ever had that in your life, you’ve got to pay the price.

"It’s just what you put up with in farming, perhaps we should have seen it coming by what happened in Tasmania."

Mr Nicolson says he appears to have lost around 20 per cent of his ewes to the snow.

"I’ve just been round some paddocks I couldn’t get around yesterday, and I’ve seen up to 25% dead.

"It’s not only lambs, it’s ewes, most lambs have survived because they have stayed in the shelter.”

While farmers in the south battle the extreme cold, their colleagues further north are dealing with the effects of one of the wettest winters on record.

Waikato Feds President Stew Wadey says the rain has made conditions especially tough after the autumn drought.

"Flooding on productive land has fortunately been kept to a minimum, even though our soils are really, really saturated.

"That’s causing management problems on both sheep and dairy farms, it’s a bad time for most, and feed is very tight.

"We’re fortunate when compared to our friends in the South Island, we are still relatively mild, even though it’s very wet here.

"It’s a quirk of nature, as farmers we have to take what it throws at us, but we still wish sometimes that it gives us a bit of a hand now and then.”

One area of central Waikato has recorded 2000mm of rain so far this year. The normal annual rainfall is 12-1300mm.