Dairy herds face mastitis issues as 100,000 Victorians lose power

Victorian dairy farmers are facing mastitis issues and production losses after extreme weather downed power lines across the state.

Victorian dairy farmers are facing mastitis issues and production losses after the state was hit by extreme weather overnight, which downed power lines and saw wind gusts hit 130km/hr.

More than 120,000 people are currently still without power.

Gellibrand dairy farmer Simon Scott missed two milkings after losing power on Thursday last week and faces ongoing losses today.

He said he lost power again with the severe weather and would need to clear several trees once conditions were safer.

“I missed 40 hours of milking, two milkings, and my cell count went from 139 to 1.2 million,” he said.

Mr Scott said he believed he had lost between $4000-5000 in missed milkings, and needed to replace the dairy’s worn-out diesel generator.

SES attend to storm and wind damage across Victoria. Picture: Colac SES

Picture: Colac SES

In Gippsland, Won Wron dairy farmer Paul Mumford said he had lost power four times in the past 10 days, forcing his team to turn on back-up generators to continue milking.

“The real problem is service crews are now based 100kms away, not in (nearby) Yarram as they used to be,” Mr Mumford said.

“They got power back to town quickly, but it’s two days before they get to us.”

SES attend to storm and wind damage across Victoria. Picture: Warnambool SES

Picture: Warnambool SES

Western Victorian crews are responding to more than 239 individual jobs, with downed trees, branches over power poles, wires and damage to infrastructure.

Senior meteorologist Christie Johnson said a series of strong cold fronts caused extreme and damaging winds.

The state’s highest wind gust recordings were at Wilson’s Prom (146km/h), Mount Gellibrand (133km/h), Falls Creek (131km/h), Warragul (124km/h and Portland (120km/h).

“The winds have actually been the strongest across most of the state already this morning,” she said.

The Bureau has declared severe weather warnings for several regions across Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, New South Wales, and Australian Capital Territory today.

It comes after southwest and central Victoria faced widespread outages on Thursday, when severe winds and a road crash caused more than 20,000 people to lose power.

People in the area should report fallen powerlines to Powercor on 13 24 12, and always assume a powerline is live.