As gentle rain began falling in Winton last week, faces also began falling, as landholders resigned themselves to the loss of the standing body of dry feed they’d managed to grow in early autumn.
Some 14mm fell last Wednesday, followed by another 9mm that evening and early Thursday morning, and the yellow grass began turning grey almost immediately.
Longreach livestock and pasture management specialist, Desiree Jackson, said while she hadn’t had a chance to see the outcome for herself yet, she urged graziers to check their pasture daily this week and be prepared to make some hard decisions.
“I felt so sorry for the people who thought they could see themselves through at last,” she said.
“This is a really critical period and people will need to move quickly when they see signs of damage because weight loss in their animals will really accelerate.
“They need to weigh the cost of feeding with buoyant market prices.
“I don’t say this lightly – I’ve been in this position myself.”
Desiree said if people taking a close look at their grass saw it getting paler and showing black spots where cell walls had been shattered and growing fungus, those were the signs their feed had become deficient, especially for wet and pregnant animals, and most likely for dry stock too.
She said they would need to upgrade from a urea supplement to an energy supplement, or consider weaning stock or shifting them.
“Urea will be ineffective – animals might gorge themselves to satisfy their energy needs,” she said.
She also warned that people with a lesser amount of rain further south in the central west might think it hadn’t caused as much damage, but it probably would have.
“It’s a bit of a wait and see to see if it grows much herbage,” she said.
“The country that had two inches should respond but any growth they get has got to stay in front of grazing stock and kangaroos.”
“It could buy people time though.”
Protein drought expected
Winton stock and station agent, Jack Brodie, said the better rain had been towards McKinlay and Boulia, but unless there was follow-up in a couple of weeks, most people he’d spoken to were expecting a protein drought.
“All this country locally around Winton has hayed off, and it’s been cold and overcast today so it’ll take a bit of protein out of the feed, but the more you’ve got, the more you’ve got to lose I suppose.
“We’re very grateful that we’ve got some feed to damage, certainly a long way better than a lot of other people in NSW and other parts of Queensland.”
He said the grass response from the big falls in early March had been mixed, depending on storm rain putting moisture in the soil prior to that.
Some grass towards Middleton was still showing signs of green, along with creeks with buffel grass in them.
Jack said most places were conservatively stocked and he expected demand for stock to tighten up even further now that feed might be damaged.
“It’s fair enough, people don’t want to cut themselves short. Everyone’s just a bit hawkie these days, they’d rather have that little bit of backup.”