YOU won’t hear a farmer telling anyone “we could do with a bit o’ rain” for a while, as they are so often heard saying.

The agriculture sector has been severely disrupted by the recent floods and constant rain across the country, with industry stakeholders in western Victoria no exception.

By 9am Thursday morning, 113.8 millimetres of rainfall had been recorded at the Bureau of Meteorology weather station at the Hamilton Airport since October 1 compared to 31.4mm for the same period last year; already making it the sixth-highest record for the month since local records began in 1878.

September rainfall was the fifth highest on record for Australia, with the national area-average 103 per cent above the 1961–1990 average.

Continuing rainfall is forecast for Hamilton well into next week with a wetter than average November to January likely for most of the eastern part of Australia.

 Hamilton-based sheep shearing contractor, Allan ‘Fish’ Herring of Herring Shearing, has 15-20 shearers on his books plus another similar number of shed staff; rousies, pressers and classers, who are all off work at present.

“It’s the busiest time of the year but shearing has virtually come to a stop,” he said.

“It’s a real inconvenience and very frustrating just waiting for the rain to stop.

“There’s a lot of farmers out there who want their sheep shorn but they can’t move stock because of the rain and some of the yards are just too wet and muddy.

“We probably won’t be able to do anything for at least another couple of weeks, until things dry out a bit.”

Lanyons Stock and Station Agents’ director, Warren Clark said the record rainfall had put all normal farm activities well behind schedule.

“I was just talking to a client who is trying to put in a summer crop in - not a hope,” he said.

“He’s also trying to get his shearing done - not a hope.

“It’s put everyone so far behind, there’s going to be a snowball effect and it’s going to be mayhem when it does dry out.

“It’s having a widespread impact on everything - it’s coming up to when we normally sell suckers (lambs) in two weeks’ time, but they need sunshine to bloom.

“In Horsham they normally have 15,000 to 20,000 yarded for sale - but yesterday (Wednesday) they only had 4000.”

Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) livestock counsellor, Bradley Venning said the wet is starting to impact agricultural activities in the last few weeks, but there are some positives to come out of it.

“But we’d certainly like to see some sunshine,” he said.

“It’s pushing everything back further and further.

“People haven’t been able to get out and spray as often as they’d like to.

“Trafficability has been an issue; to get out and put the chemicals on crops.”

Mr Venning said crops are starting to mature but they’re not usually waterlogged like they are at the moment.

He said crops need sunlight to mature and that they haven’t been getting what they need.

 “I think that we’re going to start seeing some damage in the next few weeks,” Mr Venning said.

“If they don’t windrow, they’ll have to do direct heading - harvest is going to be interesting if it doesn’t start drying up soon.”

In terms of impacting livestock operations, Mr Venning said worms are becoming a problem because it’s so wet.

“There’s evidence of a lot of dags on sheep,” he said.

“Shearing and dagging has been very difficult because we can’t get the sheep dry and so everyone is getting behind.

“Flies are also going to be a major issue in the next few weeks if the sun doesn’t come out.

“Usually there is a few natural greases in the wool to protect the sheep but the amount of rain we’ve had has become a problem; it’s a good spot for flies so fleece rot in crossbred lambs could be a problem and is exacerbated by the lack of crutching and shearing.”

Mr Venning said some shearing contractors were endeavouring to work around the wet by working two or three sheds concurrently and filling up sheds where there is space available.

“But no one is going to have dry sheep this week and it doesn’t look much better for next week,” he said.

“Getting stock to sheep yards is hard work - paddocks are under water when they shouldn’t be and sheep yards and gateways are getting bogged up.

“It’s pretty soupy.”

Mr Venning said just one sunny day is needed as that is usually all it takes to dry everything up this time of year.

He said that the grass is getting longer so sheep are getting and staying wet underneath.

“Sheep don’t like their feet getting wet…they become susceptible to footrot and abscesses,” Mr Venning said.

He also said for people who want to cut sileage and hay – “good luck”.

“The humidity is too high to dry the sileage - there has been some made – but it’s going to be interesting for the next few weeks,” Mr Venning said.

“The quality of hay and silage will be a lot poorer than we normally aim for - energy levels in pasture is lower than we’d expect because of lack of sunlight.”

However, Mr Venning pointed out the positives and said at this point livestock are generally doing well as they have plenty of feed.

“There won’t be a need to feed out any time soon and the dams are full so there won’t be a water issue over the summer,” he said.

He said that in general, livestock sales have not been greatly impacted at the moment.

“We haven’t hit the major sale period yet - so the issue of trafficability - of getting trucks in and out - it’s not a problem just yet and a lot of farms have got good tracks to their loading ramps,” he said.

Mr Venning also said when farmers get their summer crops in, they should have a good season because there is plenty of moisture in the ground.

He encouraged farmers to call the VFF if there were issues with animal welfare or if there were problems with getting produce off farm.

“In terms of trafficability, a lot of gravel sheeting has been washed away in the last few days and the hotlines need to be used to let the VFF know for example, where there is road damage,” he said.

The VFF would like to hear of any issues regarding fodder or if anyone needs animal welfare help such as moving stock to higher ground.

“There is help available if they need it,” Mr Venning said.

Agriculture Victoria advised they have been working consistently to assess agricultural damage and any loss from the floods and ongoing rain - farmers should continue to watch water levels and move livestock, machinery and/or fodder to higher ground if need be.

For urgent animal welfare needs call the Vic Emergency Hotline on 1800 226 226.