OUR DROUGHT EXPERIENCES

DROUGHT FEED AND MANAGEMENT OF SHEEP

Drought recovery

• Only keep the very best genetics preferably young ewes.
  
• Start culling old ewes and work backwards as the conditions worsen.
  
• Feed the best quality feed at the lowest maintenance level. [This time we fed pellets 15% P12 ME - next time we may use wheat].
  
• Monitor stock carefully.
  
• Conserve topsoil at all costs.
  
• For good networking talk to your neighbours as farmers and sheep seem to have similar stress levels.
  
• Consider joint sourcing of fodder etc.,
  
  
  Bruce & Jean McClymont
  

  
  DROUGHT

  
  
  
  Since coming back to farming a little over twenty years ago we have experienced severe droughts in 1982 and 1994 however these don't compare with the current drought. This drought has effected us much more severely for four reasons, its length, the heat of the summer associated with it, the amount of the country effected by it and the increased bureaucratic meddling with farming operations. It has had a double wammy for us because it coincided with our relocation to a new property, having sold our stored fodder with the old place not anticipating a drought of this severity.
  
  Our new property is in a relatively secure rainfall area (average annual rainfall just over 23 inches) It is difficult to tell when a drought starts, however at our farm we have had under seven inches of rain since Feb 2002. Much of this seven inches has been in small falls of five to twenty points followed by searing heat and strong winds, rendering it totally ineffective. It has been sufficiently long to see our water dry up and our fodder paddocks turn to dust.
  
  Our neighbour has lived on his property for 59 years and this year is the first time they have had to bring in house water. He also has a dam suitable for skiing most summers. It has been totally dry for several months and the floor has the skeletons of many fish 2-3 feet long. He is currently carting in water for the cattle he has left. Our last dam dried up in Nov 2002 so we are totally dependent on a bore, which is of uncertain reliability (it hadn't been used for at least seven years). The water is of sufficient quality for use by sheep but not for house use. We have had buy in house water. At one stage even the purchase of water was becoming an issue as the water storage for Dubbo (where we purchase our water) was down to 1% of its capacity. This was not unique to this dam as many major dams were down below 10% of capacity.
  
  The water shortage in the house, causes behaviour you would not normally consider. Such as, packing up the washing, and once a week, taking it to the laundromat in town; saving up the washing up to do it once per day or maybe even every second day, showering less frequently and for a very short period, cleaning ones teeth from a half an inch of water in the bottom of a cup, using the can toilet at the shed rather than the flush toilet at the house.
  
  Water shortage in the paddock has several management impacts. Firstly the cost which included buying a tank and pump for the head of the bore, several kilometres of polypipe, a few thousand dollars of troughing, fencing to minimise erosion by restricting stock to sacrifice paddocks (these are small fenced off areas within a larger paddock to minimise soil erosion caused by stock movement). Even with this expenditure we had to mix flocks, we would have preferred to keep separate. Come mating time for the stud flock and the problem is even more exaggerated as one has to find sufficient paddocks with water to get the required mating groups for flock improvement. Also the drying of the dams created a problem as sheep were getting stuck in the mud in the bottom of the dams. Each day several had to be extracted and dams needed to be visited at least twice a day, as the crows would attach any sheep stuck. Our neighbour lost several cattle and many sheep from sticky mud. We lost only two sheep. An unexpected hazard occurred one day when lassoing a sheep to drag it from the mud. I felt a bump on my boot and on looking found that a five foot brown snake had me by the boot, it had been hidden in the mud cracks and I had inadvertently stepped on it. Fortunately, its fangs didn't penetrate the boot. I visited another paddock after having closed it off to stock only to find several wallabies and kangaroos stuck firmly in the mud. Birds were flocking to our troughs as it was the only water for miles many of these became too weak to fly and died.
  
  The feed shortage was yet another factor. We had to start supplementary feeding last August and have been feeding ever since. We arranged to leave 100 ewes and 160 lambs on agistment at our old place (about 4 hours drive each way). We culled heavily and got rid of over half our stock in August based on an estimate of feeding through to December and the feed prices at the time this seemed a minimal risk approach. Feed prices were approx ( Sheep nuts $8 / bag, Oats $180/ tonne, Lucerne Hay $180/ tonne). By November feed prices were approx ( Sheep nuts $21/ bag, Most grains in excess of $420/ tonne if you could find some, Lucerne hay $500 / tonne plus cartage). The fodder situation was becoming desperate as the grain harvest had failed in most areas. Our neighbour normally has approx 700 acres of grain but had none. South of us many farmers decided to make hay from their crops. We managed to buy two semitrailer loads of canola silage, landed on farm at approx $4500 per load. This supplemented by sheep nuts lasted for a month as there was no grass left at this stage. At this stage we also had to bring back the ewes and lambs that had been on agistment as the drought was impacting that area as well. Even the wildlife was feeling the pinch. The kangaroos became so weak that you could ride up beside them on the motorbike and with the slightest bump knock them over. We had a fox on our back veranda attempting to steal food from the dish of our boxer dog despite the fact that the dog was on the chain and could still reach the dish.
  
  Thus we revisited the question of culling. The lambs that had been on agistment were sold even though they were only 10-12 weeks old and in only fair condition (prices reflected this). We decided to keep 100 of our best commercial ewes and to cull our stud ewes by 50%. We had sold most of our rams prior to moving, by marketing hard and in some cases discounting. We had approximately 100 ram lambs, we decided to cull 80% of these. Prices for the stock sold was reasonable considering the drought conditions and the condition of the animals but still disappointing and of course a couple of weeks after the sale someone rang wanting a small truckload of our Finn/Border rams, all of which we had got rid of.
  
  While the culling had been going on, the search for fodder was continuing. The feed merchants and other sharks had cleverly (but at some risk) forward purchased much of the grain and hay that was being made in the eastern states. The prices had crept up again but other nasty surprised started to appear, like minimum purchases of quite large quantities (say $15,000 loads) and payment in advance (site unseen and supplier unknown). We continued to buy sheep nuts from a local mill because of the quality and the known supplier and we could cart them ourselves, but the price was over $600 / tonne. Other sheep nuts were advertised for as little as $400 per tonne plus cartage but investigations showed much lower protein, higher degree of fine particles and no declaration on chemical contamination. I thought I had struck gold when I acquired oats advertised in WA (over 3000 kilometres away) as the price including cartage still made them an excellent buy. Fortunately they were not pay in advance, as when they arrived the good quality oats turned out to be 80% oat husks. I refused to take them, but the scarcity of fodder was illustrated when the seller of the oats managed to resell them in less than 20 minutes to someone else in the locality, after he made just a few phone-calls.
  
  The mental impact of the drought is also something that needs management. This summer we had extreme temperatures and strong winds. Westerly or northerly winds meant dust. We had few really bad dust storms but for days on end had dust drifts that reduced visibility to a couple of hundred metres. Dust penetrated everything and piled against anything left lying on the ground. When the wind changed to the east or south we had heavy smoke pollution from the bushfires, which were raging on the coast and in the mountains. We even had a local bushfire in the adjacent national park, quite spectacular with flames leaping up to 20 metres into the air and thick smoke, however no danger to stock or property as once the fire reached the edge of the scrub in the park there was nothing to burn. The neighbour lost a couple of kilometres of fencing on his park boundary. On calm days dust or smoke often hung in the air like a discoloured fog. We were lucky in that we have air conditioning in the house and other than for one 43C degree day, when the power failed for about 12 hours, we were able to retreat to the house during the hottest hours of the day, (getting away from the heat and the wind) doing our outside work in the early morning and late evening.
  
  Keeping a positive outlook is difficult when first your fodder, then your water, then your money starts to run out and you can see the quality of your stock reducing daily despite your efforts to maintain them. Even if the drought breaks our revenue will remain considerably below expectations as we will have to restock, replenish grain and hay supplies. Operational expenditure will also be higher as the price of seed for cropping and pasture regeneration is exorbitant. For a small operation like ours this is a big financial impact.
  
  Probably the most depressing events of droughts are the bands of dark threatening clouds, alive with lightening, and rolling in from the direction from which rain would normally be expected only to watch them pass over without a drop of rain.
  Graham & Jean Bushell - Eumungerie NSW