Rural Home

Drought forces graziers to feed out weeds

ABC Rural
Drought stricken cattle north of Julia Creek


Virginia Tapp

A grazier in north west Queensland is making a 24 tonne load of molasses last five times as long as it normally would, by mixing it with wood chips before feeding it to his cattle.

John Lynch says the current drought is the worst he's experienced, and the high cost of feed and freight has forced him to develop a more economic way of keeping his remaining 3000 head of cattle alive.

He puts the noxious weed, Prickly Acacia, through a wood chipper and then pours molasses over the mixture to encourage cattle to eat it.

Mr. Lynch also pushes older Prickly Acacia trees over in the paddock, so cattle and sheep can eat the protein rich seed pods of the weed.

He says while the feeding regime is dramatically reducing his feed and freight bills, the mixture is still lacking protein.

"We're in the process of trying to get some more protein into that mix, it fills them but we just need something more. I'm trying to find out a bit more about nutrition."

Experts argue the weed of national significance is spread primarily through the droppings of cattle that have eaten the seed pods, but Mr. Lynch isn't concerned that feeding his cattle Prickly Acacia will worsen the infestation.

"Any trees that have got seeds in them, they're going to pick them up anyway and a lot of trees this year haven't seeded because it's too dry."

Mr Lynch says chipping and feeding Prickly Acacia means long hours of manual labour.

"It's very labour intensive trying to work through this year, but we made the call to go with it, we've got three months to go hopefully."

More Stories