Feeding the roos is making it hard for many farmers

TELLING the person wanting a financial contribution how it is in the bush.

Kangaroos on the horizon. Picture: Gerard Walsh

DRY AS A BONE column by Gerard Walsh - A lighter look at rural life

LAST week I received a call asking for financial help for an animal welfare group.

The bloke on the other end of the phone didn't know what to say when I said our family was already making a contribution by providing free grass to 1000 kangaroos.

I was right, we are providing the land for plenty of roos to have a feed.

I like a few roos around, like all animals and even give hay to horses that don't need it but seriously roo numbers have got out of hand and are making it hard for anyone with a farm in roo territory.

Not sure how my mobile phone number ended up in the hands of people selling everything from raffle tickets to solar power, asking for donations or undertaking surveys.

They tend to phone in the afternoon when I need to meet the deadline for the paper.

I have told a few solar panel sales people that we have more solar power than the Prime Minister and didn't need any more.

I can't make that statement any more, I eventually went to my fourth cousin, twice removed, and Googled "solar power" and "Prime Minister" and found out that the PM does have some solar power at the family home in Sydney.

Be civil to callers

It is easy to give a telemarketer a hard time but you have to remember they have one of the toughest jobs in the world.

We all have a job or run a business so we can have a few dollars in our pocket and put food on the table and petrol in the car.

It is the same with the telemarketer.

While I sometimes am a bit cheeky with my answers, I try to at least be civil because, like the rest of us, they are just trying to make a living.

As everyone with a farm would be aware, we are required to do statistics from time to time. At one time, our farm was selected as one where someone employed by the statistician would visit us for extra questioning.

The bloke who came to see us was in his late 50s and was a farmer before working in statistics in what one might say was the second phase of his working life. I would rather be a statistician than a telemarketer.

Drought stricken

I read on the Daily News Facebook page about someone who suggested for the drought to break we would need good rain each fortnight for months.

The reality is that is pretty close to the mark.

After making a decision to give cultivation a miss this year largely due to the impactof kangaroos, it is great to see a lot of farmers preparing cultivation for oats.

Feedlots do a wonderful job but there is a place for fattening livestock on oats in winter.

Originally published as Feeding the roos is making it hard for many farmers