New South Wales received the eighth-lowest rainfall from January to November in 2018 since 1900, according to BOM. It was also the warmest period on record for the state.

It would take regular rainfall over a period of several months to break the drought, BOM said.

BOM predicts that we'll continue to experience drier and warmer than average days between January and March, adding pressure to farmers already doing it tough in eastern Australia.

Source: BOM

Ken McCallum runs a cattle property out at Crookwell.

He’s been tracking the rainfall at ‘Cumberoona’ since 1985 and said the average rainfall per year has been around 725mm.

His records show there was 651mm of rainfall in 2017 and 643mm in 2018. Despite those numbers not dropping dramatically, “it came at the wrong time,” Mr McCallum said.

“We had to feed more through winter because the rain didn’t fall when we really needed it,” he said. “To get an autumn break, we needed the rain in February, March and April. In March, we only got 2mm.”

Mr McCallum has been stockpiling feed to get through the next few months.

“We’ve got about seven loads of hay ordered to fill the shed back up,” Mr McCallum said. “It’s about $100 per tonne dearer than in 2017.”

Thankfully, a fair bit more hay has been made over the past few months, according to Mr McCallum.

“That was the problem buying it through winter, there wasn’t much made,” he said.

Mr McCallum said they’ll also be trying to guess when will be the best times to sell stock off throughout the year.

Jason Carroll also runs cattle out at Laggan, near Crookwell.

He said that it was a very dry 2017 spring/summer, which led into a really dry autumn/winter in 2018 at ‘Fullerton Station’.

Both years also experienced extreme minimum temperatures (-15 degrees Celcius), which really knocked the livestock about, particularly cattle and calving cattle, according to Mr Carroll.

“Conservative measures I’m taking to anticipate dryer weather include longer fallows for winter crops and running less breeders and fattening more steers and heifers, instead,” he said.

“I’ve also developed my irrigation licence, as I don’t like to buy off-farm hay or silage.”

Mr Carroll said he would also move first-time calving heifers to calve in September or October to avoid the freezing temperatures.

Yass-based grazier Sam Bucknell has already sold off the younger stock that he didn’t want to “gamble with.”

“If the pastures are stressed, it takes longer for the grass and clovers to grow back again,” Mr Bucknell said.

“Imagine mowing your lawn every day, rather than leaving it for a month - it’s the same thing.”

Stock on pastures at this time of year could be eating seed that would grow when it rains next, according to Mr Bucknell.

“It will take much longer to get pastures back if people are hammering and stressing them at this time of year,” he said.

George Henderson of Grogansworth Merino Stud in Bowning is taking similar action to Mr Bucknell.

“We’ve sold surplus young ewes and old ewes and plan to retain our current feed numbers,” Mr Henderson said.

“We’re feeding weaners and will start feeding ewes soon.”