South Gippsland cattle trader and commission buyer Anthony Hullick has struggled with water shortages on his property at Nerrena. Video by Petra Oates.
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00:00This dam was excavated about three or four years ago. We cleaned it out in a fairly significant sized dam and it's been full for the last 12 months and then our spring rain, we got it at the right time but we had no great runoff and since then it's now down to about 10% and I think the dam itself is starting to go off with the blue-green help.
00:30I'd say with the next two weeks I'll be locking all my cattle out of here and taking them back to my elk property.
00:34Between the two mobs of cattle here, the far mob away seem to be in a better condition than this mob here. This mob here I think is probably under more water stress, the dam that we just spoke about before, they've been drinking out of that.
00:50I think the effect of the water is taking a fairly significant effect on their condition. The mob over there appear to be in a better nick and I think the water is actually better.
01:00I'm a big believer in is that if you've got good water and you can get in some sort of hay source, you can survive but if you've got to start trucking in water or your water quality has become very poor, it doesn't matter what you feed them, the problem is that the cattle just won't do on it.
01:17So, hence the reason why, again, what we said earlier is that I'll take some of these younger cattle home where I have got access to pretty good water but here it's going to be a struggle.
01:29And the biggest problem is that I don't want the cattle to go that far backwards coming into winter because with no water, no feed, even though it looks green here at the moment but it's very, very short and it's dry so I'll take them home.
01:43And how much water do you need to be in a good position on this property?
01:48Well, if I can get the dams where they are now, if we had a bit of runoff, I'd get them back to a 50% capacity, that'll get me through winter.
01:58But the problem is, though, we need that runoff again coming into late winter and spring to get it through the next season.
02:05Right at the moment, and this is the driest, and I've been up here for 16 years, this is the driest I've ever, ever seen it since I've had this place in 2009.
02:14And how much rainfall do you need to get that runoff now?
02:18Well, if I can order it, I'd like 50 tomorrow, 50 next week and then 50 a week after.
02:25And then we'd actually start to see some sort of progress in the dams.
02:28But 10 mills here and 10 mills here and 10 mills there, it's not going to make any effect at all in dams.
02:35And what can I have done in dams there?
02:39And the limit has to go on the side.
02:42And that's, I think, it's alright again.
02:47We're not concerned about that.
02:48Yeah, and what I've done later on in the dams, we hope that the sings, you know.