Cobwell Station, Barham, NSW: Animals stranded, 95 per cent of property floods
A man-made pontoon and dedicated team is single-handedly rescuing 500 sheep amid rising flood waters at Barham, NSW.
Quick thinking and a man-made raft has helped save almost 500 head of sheep from rapidly rising floodwater on a Lawson Angus property in NSW.
Surrounded on all sides by major rivers, with the Wakool on their northern boundary and offshoots of the Murray to the south, Cobwell Station at Barham, NSW, has become a verifiable island with only several kilometres of levy banks preserving any remaining dry ground.
“The property is about 8500 acres (3440ha) and I would say 8000 acres (3238ha) is now under water,” station manager Dwayne Ferarri said.
Quick thinking and some timely pre-planning by Dwayne and his team of three has saved the Lawson sheep flock, 500 of which were out grazing in bushland on the property at the time of the major flooding.
After 100mm of rainfall combined with floodwaters racing down the Murray catchment inundated their grazing country last week, the team have been working around the clock with a DIY pontoon to save their stranded flock.
“We had one big downpour of a bit over 100mm around three weeks ago and we were supposed to get only another 20mm last week but we actually got 94mm,” Dwayne said.
On the Friday before last week’s unexpected downpour of another 100mm, Dwayne sourced several pontoons from Cohuna to build the improvised sheep raft in a matter of hours.
“I was keeping an eye on the sheep who were stranded anyway but they had a good couple hundred acres of country left at that stage but I thought I better plan something in case we have to shift them,” he said.
“We were going to strap a couple of tinnies together and put a deck on it but in the end we found these pontoons.
“I just got some timber and marine plywood I bolted down to them and our fencing contractor had some second-hand pool fencing that was nice and light we put around the edges.”
When the pontoon was assembled, Dwayne predicted he had “another two weeks” before he had to start moving sheep, but the handy bit of pre-planning turned out to be a lifesaver for the flock when the influx of flood water came just four days later.
Initially towed by Dwayne’s fishing boat, the pontoon has now been fitted with its own motor, permitting the team to navigate into floodwater as low as eight inches (20cm) deep.
“Once it’s loaded it needs about 12 inches (30.5cm) to tow a load of sheep,” Dwayne said.
The pontoon can handle about 1600kg, which equates to about 25 ewes and lambs in a safe load.
“We get out to them, set up our portable yards and load ramp and just walk them on to the pontoon through the water and then we come back, load the yards on and go to the next mob.”
The four-man rescue team includes Dwayne, alongside his brother Brendan Ferarri and his 23-year-old son Lachlan, as well as workers Dean Martin and Jacob Patterson, with his sheep dog Tramp.
At a rough estimate, the farm had sustained about $1.5 million worth of damages in lost cereal and silage crops, Dwayne said, with about 40km of levy banks blown out.
“It would be $300,000 lost just in fertiliser on 1100 hectares sown, as well as labour, time and fuel and the crop itself would be every bit of $1.5 million lost, if not more,” Dwayne said.
“We would’ve lost about 8500 to 1000 tonnes in silage – that’s a pretty big chunk.
“We work on about 12,000 tonne of dry matter a year as out requirements for the cattle – it’s a lot of feed to loose.
Despite this, the animals have remained the team’s No.1 priority and they have managed to minimise their sheep losses to just 20 to 30 head of their 700-head flock.
“I’d like to say we haven’t lost animals but I’d say at a guess we’re down 25 to 30 head of ewes short. We haven’t had time to do a proper headcount on the sheep,” Dwayne said.
Now, one 3km levy bank is the only thing standing between the racing floodwaters and one of the last patches of dry surrounding Dwayne’s house, where most of the animals are.
“It’s a 4ft (122cm) high levy holding up the driveway and if we lose that we’re going to lose the whole farm,” Dwayne said.
“We’re walking that with shovels day and night trying to patch it. We would have about an inch (2.5cm) of leeway in the best spots along it.
“We’re just trying to keep everything at bay under the water stops rising. My main objective is my workers and the livestock right now.”
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