Agriculture
13 June, 2023
Lushness and moonscapes
LAND along the Serpentine Creek is having a patchy return to growth since last October’s flood emergency. Willera Merino’s manager Simon Coutts said land between the creek and the Loddon River had been turned into a moonscape late last year. And...
LAND along the Serpentine Creek is having a patchy return to growth since last October’s flood emergency.
Willera Merino’s manager Simon Coutts said land between the creek and the Loddon River had been turned into a moonscape late last year.
And while some land had already returned to growing lush lucerne, some areas were still to recover.
“Some parts of the property are still looking like a moonscape and then metres away, there’s lucerne growing a metre high,” said Simon.
“At the moment though, we could do with a little more rain to help growth and regeneration after a very light autumn.”
Simon said lucerne planted at Easter had germinated well. And the flood produced other challenges at Willera in the months after the near-record floods.
A water-ruined vetch crop helped with feed for sheep and bare-shorn lambs.
But that also unleashed an animal husbandry issue that Simon had not experienced before. The young animals were eating vetch plants that had developed mould after weeks submerged in flood and rain waters.
“We discovered some were going blind … one day alone there were 50 found,” he said. “We have vets check the lambs and the mouldy vetch plants had been the cause, something I had never heard of before.
“We put more hay into the paddocks to manage this new challenge along with wet and sore feet as the sheep were constantly kept on the driest ground we could find.
“We didn’t lose a lot of stock and that came down to being as prepared as possible as more rain fell and you knew flood levels would keep rising. Moving stock to higher ground with shelter and hay – managing and adjusting animal husbandry.”