South Gippsland producers forced to offload amid floods

South Gippsland cattle producers are struggle with flooding for the third year running after over 100mm of rain in the last fortnight.

Anthony Hullick is a cattle trader and Gippsland based commission buyer at Tarwin. In a normal year Mr Hullick runs about 400 cattle which he has now halved to 200 to manage the unseasonably wet conditions.

Recent and widespread flooding in South Gippsland is forcing more cattle into the saleyards as producers are pushed to offload.

In the last two-and-a-half weeks, most areas of south Gippsland have seen more than 100mm of rainfall.

The unseasonably high rainfall for the month of August, marked the third year of above- average rainfall for the region.

South Gippsland cattle trader and commission buyer Anthony Hullick who had severe flooding last year has found himself in the same position.

In a normal year Mr Hullick runs about 400 cattle across his two properties at Tarwin and Nerrena, which he has now halved to 200 head to manage the unseasonably wet conditions that forced a constant paddock rotation of stock.

“The biggest problem at the moment is all the catchments within the Gippsland area are full and it doesn’t take much for it to run straight off again.

“The flood down at Tarwin recently was the highest that I’ve ever seen it in the 20 years I’ve been there.

“Any rain over 30mm is going to put us right back to where we started,” he said.

Agent Tom Hanrahan’s family business Homebush Pastoral, near Leongatha, backgrounds close to 1000 steers on property.

Last week they were forced to consign 49 steers averaging 520kg into the Leongatha store sale after a deluge of “at least 160mm” of rain fell on their property the previous fortnight.

“This heavier soil just retains so much water and can bog up quite easily – it just becomes a nightmare to move cattle and try and keep them fed and above ground,” Mr Hanrahan said.

Mr Hanrahan said their issues are more logistical now as they struggle to manage rotational grazing to allow for some spring growth.

“We didn’t have much rainfall in autumn but it was a bit of a blessing in disguise now it’s raining so much again.

“It allowed the ground to dry off and eased the worm burden a bit too – it started raining in March of 2019 and never really stopped for three years.

Baillie Brothers from Tyers were also forced to draft 42 head of cattle into Leongatha last week.

“This is our second flood in 10 or 12 days,” Mr Baillie said.

“We had four floods last year and we thought that was wet but we’ve just had 100mm last fortnight.