‘Pastures stuffed’: Braunstone cattle farmers stressed over flood, feed and freight
Pushed to the brink by drought in Broken Hill the McCallums moved to Braunstone, near Grafton, and they’re now battling floods. They reveal the stress they are under.
Grafton
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As the flood waters rose again cattle and tea tree farmers James and Bek McCallum were nervous.
During the last flood they knew that the only place for their 40 cattle off the flats was the house pad and on the few hundred metres on Braunstone Road directly out the front of their house.
But the second round of floods posed new problems for the pair with their feedstock no longer available.
“The grass did dry enough to get out and slash the pastures but it’s the end of the summer period and we won’t get much new growth and there’s no time to regrow the pasture,” Mr McCallum said.
“We were hoping to bail but it’s so wet it’s impossible,” he said.
The couple have been feeding their cattle hay which is better quality than their grass at the moment.
Mr McCallum has been able to get some donated hay allocated on stock numbers but even that isn’t without its problems.
“It’s the freight that’s the killer,” he said.
“There’s a lot of cheap hay at the moment but to get it from where it is to where people need it is the problem.”
Mrs McCallum is seven-and-a-half months pregnant and stressed at the state of the feed after the second flood in a matter of weeks.
“We’re concerned that the feed hasn’t come back because after the flood waters went over the pastures they are stuffed,” she said.
From their time in Broken Hill the pair have experience in contract mustering, dust and sand flies so floods on pasture flats are taking a bit to get used to.
But they are determined to get on with things as flood waters subside on their property outside of Grafton.
“It’s just a spanner in the works,” Mr McCallum said as they watched the flood waters rise again.
“It’s so disruptive you can’t get things done you need to,” he said.
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