It's been a massive job for dairy farmer James Neal to get back on his feet after floodwaters hit his dairy farm at Oxley Island near Taree, NSW.
His herd of 600 dairy cows were standing for days in flooded paddocks and there was damage all around.
The herd was eventually moved to high and drier ground where he could lay out some hay for the herd of mainly Holsteins, Jerseys, mixed breeds and Illawarra cows at his place, Farm Profits.
It's over six months since the floods but the pain goes on.
James estimates he's lost 300 cows from prime production due to things such as mastitis.
He lost many young calves and for a short-time after the floods the cell count in his millk increased from 48 to 900.
Then there was the damage throughout the farm.
Sand and rocks and bottles strewn across the paddocks by the floodwaters and then drains blocked everywhere, silted up.
Weeds then came down the river and he's now fighting off a cathead infestation.
"It's just never ended since the floods, the amount of work, amount of labour involved has just been enormous."
Luckily Rural Aid provided some workers for a week to help with the clean-up.
He reckons he had over 660mm of rain in the March downpour. The Prime Mininster saw the damage at first hand.
James is a fifth generation dairy farmer and has rarely seen floods like this that engorged his property.
He has extensive agricultural research, development and extension skills and has been involved in on-farm research demonstrations to improve pasture production in autumn when forage is most limiting and alternative feeds are expensive.
Just after the floods, the local RSL donated damaged carpet to the Neals, and other local farms, to save their cows by providing cushioning to walk on as many start to go lame.
He welcomed the new flood relief package as the costs keep going on and flood repair work never stops.
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