The gain, plus slightly more breeding from hoggets, could not offset the lower ewe numbers, Beef + Lamb New Zealand said.
The average lambing for this season was 129%, a 1.7% gain on last year and nearly 8% above the 10-year average of 121.4%.
More lambs were tailed in the South Island, with a substantial increase in Marlborough-Canterbury as recovery from drought continued, but a lower number in the North Island, where the decline in ewe numbers was greater.
The east coast of the North Island suffered losses in the rain bomb during lambing in early September and the region is estimated to have had 331,000 fewer lambs tailed than a year earlier, a 5.9% fall to 5.3 million.
Farmers tilting land use to beef from sheep were also a factor across the North Island.
Total lamb numbers tailed for NZ were 23.5m, a 163,000 or 0.7% decline.
B+LNZ’s surveys indicated the fall in breeding ewe numbers was 2.1% to 17.4m.
The record lambing percentage is further evidence farmers are continuing to achieve productivity gains, doing more with less and improving efficiencies, the head of B+LNZ’s economic service Rob Davison said.
North Island lamb numbers fell an estimated 3.2% or 371,000 head to 11.3m. South Island numbers rose 1.7% or 208,000 to 12.2m.
Features included a Northland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty lambing rate of 139%, up from 132%, continuing a run of gains.
Though ewe numbers in those regions have fallen to 2.263m mated from 2.344m last year, lambs tailed increased by 51,000 to 3.15m.
Taranaki and Manawatu percentages were steady.
In Marlborough and Canterbury the lambing rate jumped nearly 10% to 129.4% despite some variable individual farm results.
Across the region, 3.37m ewes were mated, producing 4.37m lambs. Last year 3.39m ewes mated had 4.06m.
Southland had a small increase in lambing percentages and Otago a small decline.
The South Island lambing rate was 129.9% and the North Island rate was 128.1%.
The B+LNZ survey showed 1.1m lambs were born from hoggets, up 2.7% from a year earlier.
That was 4.7% of total lamb numbers.
Of them, 622,000 were in the North Island and 475,000 in the South.
Growth in hogget breeding was greatest in the northern North Island and in Marlborough and Canterbury and the east coast had half of the North Island tally.
B+LNZ estimates the number of lambs for export this season will be 19.05m, a 4% fall on the 19.87m last year.
The export tonnage is forecast to be 4.4% lower, with a slightly lower average carcase weight expected.
