PRAIRIE grazier Debbie Viney is spending her days fencing off boggy dams, rescuing poddy calves from mothers walking away from them, and putting out lick.
She sent in her application for emergency agistment on a national park this week and now has her fingers crossed.
In the 12 months since June last year, she has measured just 164mm on her 10,000ha property Janeville, 150km south of Prairie.
One of the parks selected for grazing, Moorrinya National Park, is 50 to 60km from her front gate as the crow flies and Debby describes it as "hot property".
"Not long ago it was known as Shirley Station and it ran cattle on it," she said.
Debbie's desperate situation at Janeville has been compounded by a lack of agistment and poor markets.
She had 400 heifers pre-booked for sale last October but when the wet season failed, that sale fell through.
Other cattle placed on agistment had to come home when the property they were on ran out of water.
She managed to sell 72 cows and heifers at a sale in Blackall in April, averaging $315/head, but was unable to offload any more - at the time saleyards were fully booked and turning cattle away.
Now she says it's prices that are crippling her as much as the drought.
She expects to pay about $250,000 on hay and lick this year, one of the reasons the national park grazing is so attractive. She's feeding 40 poddies and has farmed others out to neighbours and friends as cows have gotten weak and died in the cold wet snap.
"I'd put whatever number the government allows me to have on the national park," she said.
"We'll just be happy to have a feed for our cows."
