Crossbred wool returns matched the high prices of late 1980s at the peak of pre-lamb shearing and shearers are putting some of this down to top wool coming out of central Canterbury.

Much of the price gain has come from increased overseas demand as wool supplies fall from a shrinking national flock, but this has been assisted by ewes producing finer wool during tough conditions the past year.

"The wool this year during pre-lamb shearing was the best return it's been since the late 1980s for crossbreds," said Pullin Shearing contractor Barry Pullin.

Rebekah Parsons-King/Fairfax NZ Shearers are close to winding up pre-lamb shearing and have been impressed by wool quality so far.

"We saw prices up to $7 a kilogram clean and more with some of the finer edge up on this. One of the reasons is the supply issue with less sheep around and the wool has been very good quality because it's been a bit drier and with less feed around the wool has been a bit finer - probably by around half a micron."

Wool reflects the quality of feed going into ewes and there appears to have been fewer "breaks" in ewe wool as farmers concentrated on keeping their flocks in good condition during dry spells. Overall, hogget wool breaks have been more noticeable because of this concentration on ewe condition with wool also showing the southerly blasts of two months ago.

Pre-lamb shearing was interrupted by a cold start as temperatures dropped below freezing before settling to a good run, said Pullin, a former president of the New Zealand Shearing Contractors Association.

"Stock have come through in pretty good order considering some places had a bad drought and some of the drought in North Canterbury came down to central Canterbury in places. Farmers made good decisions and there weren't skinny sheep around. It could have been very bad but it was managed well and cockies deserve a pat on the back because some spent a lot of money and it shows they care for their stock."

By culling, selling or shifting stock, and bringing in more feed, farmers were able to ensure the rest of their flock was well fed.

The bulk of pre-lamb shearing, when ewes are shorn before they give birth, runs from July to September. This is coming to a close as lambing is at its final leg with newborn lambs arriving only in the uppermost high country stations.

Pullin said the pre-lamb shearing season was continuing to drift forward, mainly driven by feed supplies this year, as farmers looked for more security and instead of having their ewe flocks shorn six weeks out from lambing they looked to do this several weeks earlier to have more flexibility with managing stock.

He said farmers were making the call after calculating weather risks and making sure they had good feed and shelter.

Farmers always got the best wool from their flocks when it was shorn before lambing because it could get a "lambing break" when ewes put more energy into feeding their lambs. At pre-lamb shearing the breaks can be at the tip as wool grows from the base outwards like human hair.

Shearing gangs are working on the last mobs of pre-lamb shearing as well as hoggets and merino wethers.

Wether shearing was well down, said Pullin.

"We would be lucky if there was 600,000 wethers in the country now. Years ago there were two to four million and now we would be lucky to have half a million and that's just change to tenure reviews and the traditional wether block has gone. It's not a shame when you are battering to do 140 a day and your back hurts because it takes five minutes to shear one instead of two minutes, but it was great work because it filled in the gaps for the first ewes with lambs."

He said now was a challenging time for shearers as they worked to fill gaps in rosters.

Apart from wethers and hoggets to complete there were some early ewes with lambs at foot which had to be shorn before summer shearing began.

Farmers wanted these ewes shorn sooner than later because of forecasts for an El Nino this summer. Most of these ewes will have full wool with some second shear fleece to be removed as farmers look to sell some ewes or sell lambs to the store market.