Regular storms have forced Katrina and Chris Heathwood to have a generator permanently connected to their dairy.
It means when the electricity supply fails, they can milk their cows and keep their milk cold. It also provides hot water for cleaning.
So they were able to keep milking their cows when grid power was disconnected during storms caused by Tropical Cyclone Seth and the floods in February.
It was one less thing to worry about as they coped with recovering and tried to access Special Disaster payments.
Katrina and Chris Heathwood and his parents, Colin and Jean, run a dairy farm at Goomeri, west of Gympie, in Queensland.
They milk 350 to 380 cows in a 24-bay herringbone rapid exit dairy, and the herd calves year-round. There are four full-time and two casual employees.
Natural waterways intersect the farm, causing the main laneway between the two houses to cut Chris and Katrina off from his parents’ house and the dairy.
So when Tropical Cyclone Seth impacted their farm in early January, Chris and Katrina had already moved into his parents’ home.
“The February flood started about 2am and we heard it starting, but we didn’t realise we wouldn’t be able to get over the creek,” Katrina said.
Neighbours milked the cows in the morning, and Katrina and Chris moved into his parents’ home, which is closer to the dairy, before afternoon milking.
“We often run the dairy on the generator because we have regular storms,” Katrina said.
“It runs the milking platform, the vat and the hot water system. I think every dairy farmer should have a generator because it means we can look after the girls.”
During the February flood, road access was affected — they were isolated and had to dump 15,500 litres of milk.
“We were close to dumping another 8000 litres of milk when the truck came in,” Katrina said.
“Norco stood by us and have covered us for the loss of milk.
“It was reassuring to know we were part of a co-op that cares and stands by its farmers. The Norco field officers were checking in with us all the time.
“The dairy industry was great — people were ringing us to check on how we were and what help we needed. It was reassuring to know we were not doing it alone.”
Rain has kept the creek level up and their land waterlogged, affecting animal health, silage harvest and soil condition.
“Continual rain means the ground hasn’t dried out and the cows get sick with mastitis and sore feet,” Katrina said.
“They drop production because they’re not comfortable.
“Every day we wash and dry their teats and we strip every quarter before we put the cups on, so we can pick up pretty quickly on any mastitis. We’ve had to give antibiotics to some of them.
“Each morning we catch any cows with sore feet, and Chris puts a shoe on them and trims their feet.
“It’s adding extra time onto milking because we have to be more vigilant and check each cow.
“Then we ensure our antibiotic milk is separated from the 50,500-litre vat, using a secondary vat.”
They are using their feeding pad for the 180 replacement heifers and currently discussing plans to better protect their cows from extreme weather.
“We’re looking to build a shed for the cows to protect them from these type of weather events,” Katrina said.
Unfortunately, the continual summer storms interfered with silage harvest and caused their silage pit to cave in.
“This time of year is when we’re trying to harvest silage,” Katrina said.
“We use a sorghum-mix pasture. We need about 7000 tonnes of chopped pit silage each year.
“When Seth hit us in January, we had 300mm of rain in a few hours. The soil became so saturated and we were about to start harvesting. We were just about out of silage.”
When Dairy News spoke to Katrina in mid-March, she said the silage was “now past its best potential”.
They hoped they could get onto their cultivated country the following week.
“We’ll still take it off, and just keep testing it to measure the quality,” Katrina said.
“We’re going to have to buy fodder to provide that extra protein.
“We’ll have to sow a rye-grass for winter feed, making the most of the full moisture profile, and try and get as many cuttings off that as we can.”
During the February flood, the silage pit walls collapsed.
Chris and Katrina have looked at the disaster grants for opportunities to fund repair, but she feels there is no funding to help them.
“After the 2013 floods, we put in bigger contour banks around the pit,” Katrina said.
“But the January rain was still too much. Moving forward we’re again going to try and improve the durability of our silage pits.
“There’s limits to what the grants cover. We’ve cleaned out the silage pit and we have to wait to do the remedial works.”