Farmer takes in refugee cows

By JO-MARIE BROWN

With floodwaters forcing Manawatu farmers to evacuate up to 8000 cows this week, Chris Bagrie has hurriedly converted his crop and forage farm to dairying to help out.

The 200ha farm at Poroutawhao, just north of Levin, would normally produce hay at this time of year.

But yesterday 1000 weary cows from seven different farms began filing into Mr Bagrie's mothballed cowshed to be milked.

"It's just a community thing. That's what rural people do when others are in strife. We pull together," Mr Bagrie said.

Across the district, exhausted sharemilkers have moved their stock to higher ground, some cows being trucked as far as the Bay of Plenty and Taranaki until waters recede.

Federated Farmers have helped co-ordinate efforts to relocate the animals. Manawatu-Rangitikei provincial vice-president Grant Rowan yesterday described the response from the community as "superb".

"We've had offers of grazing, supplements and a lot of other things from all over the country."

The Moutoa region, southeast of Foxton, and farms around the Rangitikei River mouth were the worst hit by floods.

"Some of the ground is still under water and there's going to be heavy silting," Mr Rowan said.

"New grass will have to be sown so it'll be a good eight weeks before there's any prospect of grazing."

Fortunately, stock losses did not appear to be as high as first thought.

"Some cows have been washed away but there's a good chance they'll turn up downstream.

"People who have flown over the area say there's no evidence of a huge number of carcasses washed up anywhere, so that's positive."

Road closures and power cuts at local dairy factories have forced the dumping of millions of litres of milk over the past three days.

But it was vital the cows were still milked to prevent them from drying up altogether.

In a remarkable show of community spirit, it took less than 24 hours to convert Mr Bagrie's farm to dairying yesterday, as it was once used for that purpose.

"It still needs a bit of a clean-up, but at least it's operational," Mr Bagrie said.

"The next task will be to sort out who owns what.

"As the floods were coming in, everyone was just opening the gates and herding the cows into one big mob, so we don't know which ones belong to who at this stage."