Thirty millimetres of rain received over three days last week has come as a huge relief to Jasmine and Jack Carmody, at Prenti Downs station, offering them respite to rest, recover and regroup after an intense few months.
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The rain started on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week, falling mostly on the station's southern and western boundaries.
Although it did not match the levels received by some of WA's more westerly pastoral stations - it was "much appreciated" and would prove very useful, Mr Carmody said.
"It was a nice, easy, gentle, soaking rain,'' Mr Carmody told Farm Weekly today.
"The creeks are flowing, the claypans and the few dams we have on the property are filling up and the rain is relieving the pressure on some of the water points.
"It has dropped the stress levels significantly and has meant Jasmine and I have been able to slow down a bit for the past couple of days.''
Concerned about the pressure on the water points, on January 10 Mr Carmody trucked 85 cattle and a pet camel to the family's 3600-hectare livestock and broadacre cropping and backgrounding operation, Clare Downs, at Cascades.
He has also shot more than 420 feral camels since New Year, as the dry conditions pushed the animals in growing numbers, across the property and towards precious cattle watering yards.
On top of all this, the Carmody family, including brothers Tom and George, helped fight the Cascades bushfire over Christmas, which Mr Carmody said was as big as the region's fatal November 2015 bushfire, which burnt out of control for two weeks.
Mr Carmody said he was expecting humid but dry conditions this week, which would allow the family a "bit of recovery time" and to work on building frames for new WiFi receivers and attend to some of the most under-stress water points.
Prenti Downs station extends across 3835 square kilometres, 257km east of Wiluna and 237km north of Laverton, surrounding Lake Carnegie and Lake Wells - putting it in about the middle of WA.
The station has a carrying capacity of 3003 cattle units, or about 100 hectares per cattle unit, and turns off 800-1000 head a year, destined for pastures at Cascade, and then the international market.
Mr Carmody said Prenti's wet season usually arrived a bit later than the neighbouring Northern Territory's and they relied on late summer cyclonic weather patterns for most of their growing season rainfall.
This year's break has come even later than usual, which had been a big worry.
The family was used to hot summers, but Mr Carmody said the recent, extremely hot weather had been more intense than usual..
He said it felt similar to conditions going into the 2018-2019 drought - though had not yet reached that kind of peak.
"It has been so hot and dry, the temperatures have been in the mid to high-40 degrees,'' Mr Carmody said.
"That's happened a lot earlier in the year than we would have expected.
"We usually hope for a good, gentle January rainfall, a hot and dry February to get the growing season started and then good March rains from summer cyclones."
Since the family business Downrange bought Prenti in 2015, the Carmody's have redeveloped the station's 36 water points, adding self-mustering yards, automation and WiFi connectivity to better monitor and control their water use.
The yards around the watering points were set up to allow cattle access, but to exclude feral animals as much as possible.
Mr Carmody said the dry conditions had put pressure on many of the water points this summer, which had been exacerbated by growing numbers of camels coming in from the remotest parts of the station.
"The camels are putting pressure on the water points and some have even got into the yards,'' Mr Carmody said.
A licensed pilot, Mr Carmody conducts regular aerial surveillance, and said he was now spotting groups of 60-80 camels travelling together in a flock - usually a caravan would range from 8-15 animals up to 20-25.
Since January 1, he has culled more than 422 camels, compared to 587 across November/December last year.
That included 149 camels on one day last week.
"We haven't had much rain in the east, so camels are transitioning through in big numbers and as it has got hotter and dryer, the groups have been getting bigger and bigger,'' he said.
"From an animal welfare point of view, it is a painful time.''
Belinda Hickman
Belinda Hickman loves telling stories about the great ag people doing interesting things in farming and the regions. She writes and co-ordinates Farm Weekly's monthly Ripe feature magazine, co-ordinates and contributes to its market-leading property coverage and covers education, politics, agribusiness, health, the arts and other issues important to farming families and regional communities.
Belinda Hickman loves telling stories about the great ag people doing interesting things in farming and the regions. She writes and co-ordinates Farm Weekly's monthly Ripe feature magazine, co-ordinates and contributes to its market-leading property coverage and covers education, politics, agribusiness, health, the arts and other issues important to farming families and regional communities.
