Livestock owners in trouble as supplies dwindle to nothing

05.06.2007
By NICOLE RICHARDSON
THAT old saying "make hay while the sun shines" has been called into
question thanks to just too many sunny days of late.

The heavy rain over the weekend was too little too late for south-
east Queensland's hay stocks.

Livestock owners have been making a run on hay supplies, forcing
some produce businesses to ration as the last bales head out the
door.

Phil Parker, the manager of Sauers Produce and Garden Centre at
Cooroy, said they had been surviving on limited hay supplies for two
months and drastic measures needed to be taken to ensure it went as
far as possible.


"It's a snowballing effect now because if (regular customers) can't
buy it off me they go elsewhere," Mr Parker said.
"They panic buy, and it just strips it.

"We were trying to hold on by limiting people but we just couldn't
keep up the stocks. We knew we were going to run out, so the
inevitable has happened."

And Mr Parker said it would be at least another six months before
more stock arrived.

"Theres not enough water for grass hay and there's really not
enough water to keep the lucerne going. It wasn't growing quickly
enough to meet demand."

Mr Parker said although he managed to source some bulking products,
they weren't easy to get hold of and some animals would be forced to
survive on pellets alone.

"People are going back to things like horse and pony pellets just so
they can give their horses something to eat," he said.

"They don't have enough grass in their own paddocks to sustain them,
so this is going to have a knock-on effect for a lot of people."

But the problems won't stop there if frosts hit grass and lucerne
growing areas.

Any damage done to those stocks will extend the problem by weeks,
according to Mr Parker.

"At the moment, they're saying six weeks until supply arrives, but
that could blow out to two months.

"We may not have any winter supplies," he said.

And the problems don't stop there.

"If they start bringing in hay you've got to watch for weeds like
Parthenium coming in with the hay," Mr Parker said.

"If that happens, we're going to have another problem to deal with."

Mr Parker has some advice for horse and cattle owners.

"Conserve whatever feed you've got.

"Everyone's going to have to change their feeding regime ... it's
going to be a really sticky one."

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