Local hay and grain suppliers have noticed a surge in demand over the past six weeks, with only about 30mm of rain falling during that time.

Farmers are feeling the pinch with successive below average rainfall months and searing temperatures drying out subsoil.

Water was becoming a big issue but so too was the quality and quantity of feed, Southeastern Local Land Services (LLS) team leader (invasive species and plant health) Mark McGaw said.

“A lot of graziers are getting hay for stock and sticking it out but some people are choosing to offload animals,” he said.

“It is about matching fodder to each class of stock and a lot get it wrong. At the moment it is about maintenance but if you’re looking after lactating animals then you need a higher quality feed with greater protein.”

 Maintaining body weight with both sheep and cattle is paramount in the lead up to joining.

This month, sheep and lamb numbers peaked at 8450 at Goulburn saleyards on January 15 and 795 for cattle the day before.

Ted O’Kane from the National Livestock Reporting Service blamed the “continuing hot, dry conditions” for the upsurge.

Mr McGaw said he hadn’t seen a weekly yarding of more than 8000 sheep at Goulburn for a long time.

“In some cases graziers are cutting back to their core breeding stock and as we go deeper into drought they’ll also be looking at those animals. It really depends on the outlook,” he said.

“We are really looking at October or November before there’s any good pasture…Generally people could be looking at feeding for the next seven to eight months based on the outlook.”

 The Bureau of Meteorology seasonal outlook states “there is not a strong tendency for either a wetter or drier February to April period for most of southeast Australia.”

 In the next month, Weatherzone forecasts that cold fronts over southern and eastern Australia may bring widespread rain from February 16 to 20, February 25 to March 1 and March 1 to March 5.

Mr McGaw said most farmers had seen dry times before and were prepared, but the hardest decision was whether to sell stock or feed them. If this decision wasn’t made in good time it could be costly.

“I urge people to seek advice if they’re not sure,” he said.

“There are packages out there, such as the Grassfeed program available through the Department of Primary Industries’ website where people can type in the number of sheep, available feed and what they’re trying to achieve.”

 With fodder and transport subsidies no longer available in drought declared areas, people are paying up to $7000 to $8000 for a semitrailer load of wheat and about the same for hay, Mr McGaw says.

“A lot of states are in the same situation, so demand is quite high.”

 Those with off farm income would not be as hard hit but people who didn’t would struggle.

The nature of farming in this region has changed with more ‘lifestyle’ properties.

Mr McGaw said the old Livestock Health and Pest Authority region, which covered Goulburn, Bathurst and the Blue Mountains, had 18,000 ratepayers.

Out of these, 1080 ratepayers had holdings of more than 500 hectares, 4000 had between 100 and 500ha, 2500 had properties of 50ha to 100ha while of the remaining 10, 420 had 50ha or less.