By Margaret Maccoll
Neil Maher is paying out money to produce milk as the costs of the dry weather add up.
At milking time at Maher’s Pinbarren dairy the cows jostle to gain a place on the milking carousel keen for the feed on offer.
Dairy farmer Neil Maher milks about 220 cows of his herd of about 500 morning and evening.
As he struggles to survive the dry weather Neil has been forced to sell off 25 of his milking cows to the meat works and buy in feed.
He said it was costing him money to produce milk and he was digging into savings to buy feed for his cows.
“Unfortunately that’s what happens. We’re buying in extra grain and hay and cottonseed. It’s very expensive,” he said.
The farm has a winter crop of irrigated rye grass but is running out of irrigation water “very quickly”.
As the demand for feed grows the price of grain and hay has been increasing, he said.
Neil receives just 55 cents a litre for his milk. The dry conditions are stressing the cows and has reduced their milk output from 5500 litres/day to 4500 litres/day.
Had his farm not received 9mm of rain in Friday’s storm he would have had to this week buy tank water for his family.
“We have a quarter tank and we use it very sparingly,” he said.
The creek on the property has stopped running but the cows still have water in the dams and waterholes in the creek.
