Sisters Pastoral Co in south west Victoria is offloading Angus weaners due to the drought. Click on images for a larger view.

THE drought in Victoria and southern New South Wales is causing a mass exodus of cattle, many of which are going further north than before for agistment.

With Queensland having experienced an above average wet season, southern cattle are pushing as far north as Winton and Longreach in the central west and Torrens Creek west of Townsville, all of which is tick-free country.

James Knight from Sisters Pastoral Co in southwest Victoria runs an Angus breeding operation, with progeny taken through to 400kg-500kg.

James Knight, Sisters Pastoral Co

In an effort to hold onto his genetics, Mr Knight explained he was having to send cattle 1500km away on agistment at a cost of $200 per cow in freight.

“I need to be thinking further ahead about how we keep the business intact not only over the next six months but over the next two to five years,” he said.

“So that’s been the strategy for agistment and maintaining all the core breeders but also I believe the beef market may be very strong for the next two or three years, so I need to take this opportunity.”

Sisters Pastoral Co also has plans to move 600 weaner steers.

Dave Benson is a director of Ray White Rural at Albury and said a lot of producers have never seen conditions like this before.

“It’s been devastating, it’s been over six months from any significant rainfall and most of the producers down here have been feeding through that period,” he said.

“We fed all our fodder out last winter and haven’t been able to replenish it because we didn’t have any spring break.

“So now we’re looking at going into a very cold period of the year where we get no growth and we’ve got no fodder on hand.”

As a result, producers have been faced with the difficult decision to either feed right through the winter or sell.

“The stock are in reasonable condition, so a lot of cattle have gone into feedlots and direct to processors,” he said.

“Then the cattle not suitable for those markets are heading north and thankfully there are paddocks available because there is a mass exodus in the south.

“It’s core breeding herds remaining at this point, but I know there’s some producers that have completely destocked.”

Mr Knight said the conditions are the worst many in the Mortlake District have seen in 70 years.

“It’s not necessarily the dry conditions – it’s a culmination of last year and not having got the autumn break in what is traditionally very reliable country,” he said.

“People have to remember that southwest Vic and southern South Australia run high stocking rates so things can unravel quite quickly.”

Lack of fodder hurting producers

Mr Knight said supplementary feed in bale form had become very difficult to source in the last three weeks with contracts even being sold underneath people.

It has forced him to change his feeding program and look at pelletised feed.

Sisters Pastoral Co is having to change its supplement feed program because of tight fodder supplies.

“We have turned from fodder in the bale to fodder out of a feed mill but now we’ve got to the point where the feed mills may struggle to keep up with demand, which is going to be a real challenge going forward,” he said.

“I’ve switched our business over to feeding a high energy and protein pellet to keep pregnant cows going and it will string our bale fodder supplies out for a longer period of time.

“But we will definitely have stock leave our farm, given we have no soil moisture and no green grass, the only two options at the moment are supplementary feeding or move cattle, it’s as simple as that.

“If you choose to hold all of your stock on farm my feed budget says you’re nearly feeding everything until September.”

Cattle head for greener pastures further north

TopX Longreach livestock agent, Tom Boyle said he had never seen cattle from as far as southern Vic on a one way ticket to western Qld.

“There’s been times where cattle have come from Casino, Grafton, Tamworth, on the very odd occasion Dubbo,” he said.

Green grass near Barcaldine in May.

“But not southern NSW, Riverina, Vic or SA.

“There are truckloads of Angus and Angus cross weaners coming up either being purchased by Longreach locals or coming up for agistment to grow out into a feeder article.

“There are cattle coming up from as far as Geelong in Victoria, we’ve purchased cattle out of Wodonga and Wagga. I do know of cattle being purchased out of Mortlake.”

Mr Boyle believed up to 5,000 head had been purchased and entered the Longreach region and there was even more demand for agistment until at least October.

“By the end of this month I could have 5,000 on agistment up here and if I had the paddocks I could easily double that number,” he said.

Beef Central understands the rate for agistment for weaners is between $6 and $8 a week.

While putting cattle on agistment is an expensive exercise, Mr Benson said the numbers still added up when compared to feeding.

“We are looking at in excess of $100 for weaner cattle in freight, so it’s a lot of money to find, but already most producers are spending tens of thousands of dollars a week feeding,” he said.

“It’s costing about $3 a day to feed a weaner and $6-7 a day for cows.”

Trucks working together to move cattle

Dom Shanahan from Shanahans Livestock Transport in Wodonga said the mass destocking in the south was keeping his trucks busy.

“We would’ve moved probably 10,000 to 15,000 head last week out of the saleyards alone,” he said.

“We have also been bringing cattle halfway for some carriers and they come down from the north to get them

“For someone to come from central Qld all the way down to Albury Wodonga, the truck is a day and a half down and the same back, so it’s tied up for three days.

“So we quite often meet in Dubbo or Narrabri and the cattle can get off and have a feed which is good for the weaners, and it means they are not spending any nights on the truck if we can help it.”

Government assistance needed

Given the unprecedented nature of the drought, Mr Benson believed it was time for Governments to step in and help producers.

“Australian farmers are resilient, but given this is quite a unique situation, it’s something we haven’t seen before, I think governments might have to start looking at assisting with transport costs and fodder costs,” he said.

The mental toll of the drought is another concern for Mr Knight who said around the Mortlake area producers are struggling in ways never seen before.

“The saddest part regionally is that there are farms that don’t have any water left, particularly in the dairy space, so there’s no feed, no ground water and every cow has had to be sold and there are serious mental health concerns,” he said.

“This concept of bores drying up and people unable to continue to milk cows, we are in uncharted territory.”