Bay of Plenty farmers are starting to sell and dry off their herds in an attempt to manage valuable food prices as the drought continues to bite.

A state of drought was officially declared in the Bay of Plenty last week, and farmers are beginning to take precautionary action as the dry weather looks set to continue throughout the rest of March.

Drought stricken farmers are considering drying off their dairy herds six to eight weeks ahead of schedule.

Federated Farmers Bay of Plenty provincial president John Scrimgeour says farmers have been selling off cattle for a couple of weeks while some are resorting to drying off their herds, six to eight weeks ahead of schedule.

'It is part of the management that they are adopting really to reduce the food load and a few herds have been dried off and increasingly farmers are looking at that.”

John says farmers are currently marking time as they wait for rain to eventuate, but thinks more cows will be progressively dried off through the rest of March.

'Even in places where there has been a lot of dried up grass that has been consumed.

'If it doesn't rain those on the dried paddocks will really have to look at considering drying off their cows and hunkering down.”

AFFCO operations manager Rowan Ogg says more farmers are selling cattle due to the drought, which is placing extra pressure on processing plants across the industry.

He says the extra workload is being handled with minimal delays.

He says the extra supply of cattle will lead to a slightly larger bulge in meat supply in the coming months, but admits New Zealand exports a vast amount of meat in any event.

'We have all our plants working overtime to try and accommodate farmer's requirements to have their stock killed as soon as possible.”

The lack of resources is also keeping veterinarians busy with animal condition and grass production the two main concerns.

Tauranga Vets managing director David McDonnell says vets are being contacted with cases of rye grass staggers as temperatures continue to soar and quality and quantity of feed available reducing considerably.

The disease, a fungal toxin producing a tremor which causes a functional disturbance in the animal's nervous system, is caused when the grass is stressed and is growing slowing causing cows to have a staggered gait.

He says the main reason farmers are looking to dry off their herds is because grass energy and protein contents are dropping severely in the hot temperatures leaving little on their paddocks.

'Certainly in the last few weeks some farmers have been drying of at risk animals, but are now considering the whole herd.”