Hi we are a 5th generation farming family. 3 weeks ago we were the biggest stud of our breed in Australia. Holding around 600-800 head of cattle. Today we have around 250 cattle left. With only 100 of them being breeding stock. This will cripple our farming wage for 3 years.
We had the best drought plan in place that we ever have had. We invested in a solar power pump so our cattle would never go without water. We had 3 times the amount of hay, as we had a great season. We even donated 2 semi trailer loads of good quality hay to the fire Victims at Dunedoo. Which still left us with enough hay and grain to last us a 15 month drought. Unfortunately it has now been 18 months.
We have 2 week’s worth of hay left. If the rain does not come we will sell all of our breeding stock and keep our calves and hope to god we can save them. If this fails we will have no choice but to live without a wage for 3 to 4 years. There are only so many savings a person has.
We have sold cattle to attempt to purchase hay with no avail. We can find hay in Victoria very ordinary quality for around $50 a bale. But it will cost $75 a bale to transport them to NSW. We have afforded to buy hay at the average price. Not over double the amount of what it is worth. We have instead purchased molasses, pellets and grain for the short term until we can source a reasonably priced hay source. We are feeding out around 30 bales of hay each week as well as grain, pellets and molasses. This is expensive and has been ongoing for 18 months. We have done everything we can from vitamin shots, drenching, wheat, pellets, molasses, urea blocks, salt licks etc as you can see by the pictures we need hay. If we have hay we can at least keep our breeding herd and retain a small wage to get us through.
Please think of us. We are the backbone of this country … please donate if you can.
Good morning
We are located at Cassilis NSW.
We purchased this property in July 2011.
We are third generation farmers with good access to water but we are struggling for feed. We have sold all our weaners, sheep and culled cows where possible. We only have left our core breeders desperately hoping to lessen the financial blow for us when rain finally comes.
450 PTIC cows about to calve
130 heifers
12 bulls.
Last year our farm suffered 1450 acres of fire damage and we offered free ajistment to our neighbour who was completely burnt out as well as a friend from Coolah who suffered the same.
The problem of course is it hasn’t rained. We have on hand 20x 350 kg bales of hay and according to our stack test less than 40 days of feed before we are desert even with the supplementing of cotton seed and hay we are doing now.
We have been to see the Mudgee rural financial counselling service who we actually use regularly for our farm budgeting and really want to try to retain our breeders.
Any assistance you could give us would be enormously appreciated … please donate if you can.