Farmers paying up to $5000 a week to feed their livestock and they hope rain comes by end of June

JUST 1 per cent of the state is not in drought or under the threat of drought and farmers are paying a huge price each week just to keep their stock alive. One farmers’ shocking photo has gone viral.

IT COSTS grazier Tim Trescowthick $5000 per week in fodder just to keep his sheep alive — so a dollar sign seems the most apt shape in which to spread it on a parched paddock.

The worst drought in a decade has seen the price of triticale grain fodder triple since December alone, and Mr Trescowthick has taken a punt and sown a fodder crop into his bone-dry Murray region land.

Sheep and cattle grazier Tim Trescowthick’s photo of sheep grazing in the shape of a dollar sign has gone viral. Picture: Tim Trescowthick

If there’s no rain before winter frosts begin, it will be wasted.

“We need lots of rain by the end of June at the absolute ­latest,” Mr Trescowthick said.

Just one per cent of the state is not in the real or imminent grip of drought, says the Department of Primary Industries.

There’s barely a blade of grass to be found on Trilby Station. Liz and Gary Murray have been running Trilby at Louth, an 80-minute drive from Bourke, since 1981 and say some paddocks have never been so dry. They haven’t had decent rain since September 2016 and have been handfeeding their sheep for the past eight months.

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Some farmers have said their paddocks is the driest they have seen in 30 years. Picture: AJ Murray

“It’s as bad as the millennium drought (2001 to 2009),” Mrs Murray said.

The Murrays can afford to buy fodder and handfeed their remaining 17,000 sheep because wool prices have doubled since 2013, but livestock feed such as hay and barley is going through the roof and the numbers won’t stack up if it doesn’t rain soon.

“Haymakers have us over a barrel and can charge what they want,” Mrs Murray said.