Camping on farm to get cows calved

Chubb, who milks 150 cows, told Rural News that on their road there is a low spot which can flood. “It takes ages to drain away,” she says.

“We have house and run-off on one side, farm on the other, so we have gone and camped out down on farm so we don’t have to paddle through in a boat in the dark.

“The water is too deep to get the tractor through and may take a number of days to drain away.”

The area around Chubb’s farm received over 500mm of rain over the past few days.

She says while the area is used to reasonably intense bouts of rain, the wet weather has been challenging.  

“This weather system has been unusual in how long it has lasted. We started on Monday with a standard wet day, 40mm, then got about 500 over the next four days.

“It eased off overnight and is just drizzling now.

“I understand some farms closer to the hills have received a bit more than that and we still have another day or two of wet forecast.”

For the Chubbs it has been hard work dealing with saturated paddocks.  

“We are midway into calving, so it is challenging dealing with multiple groups of animals, feeding out in lanes and standing various groups off paddocks as much as possible.

“All the usual spring workload becomes so much harder in prolonged wet weather.”  

Chubb says, fortunately, rivers have mostly coped with the deluge.

But there will be lots of surface water, mostly from land runoff.

Scenes from the flooding at the top of the South Island. Photo Credit Cherie Chubb

She says there will be some damage to culverts, lanes, fences but that would be hard to assess until water levels drop.

Road closures have been intermittent, so there have been no issues with milk tankers and bobby calf trucks reaching farms in the area.

Chubb says they have certainly seen worse floods, but the timing of this, being mid spring, makes it hard.  

“Farmers are tired but good communications and no issues with power means they have been able to work through problems so far.”

Chubb says civil defence has been operational and they have been having daily calls with Rural Advisory Group and Feds Adverse Events team.

“It feels like a marathon event, but as soon as the sun comes out, things will turn around quickly.”