Farmers in Canterbury are nervous after the discovery of a new cluster of cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis.
Two farms in the region have tested positive, while 146 others around the country are under surveillance.
Around 1600 calves on Josh McAtamney’s farm are on a one-way trip to the slaughterhouse after several of them tested positive for the disease.
“We rear a couple of thousand calves and there are three or four girls were employed to do that and them seeing these all being killed isn’t easy,” McAtamney said.
It’s the second wave of the disease here, after their milking cows were killed last year.
“We contract milk as well and those cows got killed last year with bovis and we've restocked now and just seemed to have got it again.”
Seven Canterbury farms are now infected, causing concern among locals.
“Oh, they're nervous, they're nervous. Hopeful that it’s not going to continue to climb,” Federated Farmers' David Clark said.
The Ministry for Primary Industries picked up the infections through ongoing surveillance and are still mapping the exact source.
“It’s not a cause for alarm, we had expected this and the numbers we are picking up are well within what we had forecast,” Mycoplasma bovis programme director Stuart Anderson said.
Around $184 million has been paid out in compensation so far - a lifeline for farmers making ends meet.
“We try to stay pretty positive but yeah, it is hard - we've still got to be able to pay our bills,” McAtamney said.
Clark said while the programme has improved, "dare I say that it jolly well needed to."
"If we look back at how the programme was being run a couple of years ago, it wasn't acceptable."
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