Late breaks and early finishes have been compounded by tough irrigation restrictions, says one southern Riverina livestock producer.
Doug Scott, Lemont, Mathoura, runs a 1000 strong Merino and cross breed flock on 566 hectares, but last year was forced to sell his Blonde d’Aquitaine beef herd after 70 years.
“We’ve had to cut back to a quarter of our autumn watering, which in turn, means we have a lot less sheep to make a living from and – in turn – we have had to get an enormous amount of grain, to keep feeding them,” Mr Scott said. “Once you start in October, that’s it, you have to keep going.”
All Lemont’s 120 megalitres water allocation had been kept for the sheep, which were being fed the barley crop, graded as feed grain.
“We normally put on five or six hundred megalitres of water, we now have no allocation and it has been dry, while the cost of buying in water is too high – its just too costly to bring in,” Mr Scott said.
He said he had paid up to $250/ML and had tried to drop all the multiple birth lambs on grass and sub clover: “When we can’t get our lambs out on the green grass, they are not growing as quickly and we can’t turn them off as quickly, and it’s costing us.”
He said they were losing income by feeding the sheep the barley they would normally sell.
Mr Scott said to make maximum use of irrigation water, land had to be formed – at a cost of up to $1500/ha – and recycling facilities put in.
