Mangoplah farmer Nathan Stoll says he would encourage anybody with sheep to set up a drought lot.
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He runs his mixed livestock and farming operation "Moortangi" with his wife Anne, as well as working as an agronomist for Ag n Vet.
The Stolls have recently set up their own drought lot with some guidance from Local Land Services.
"We had sacrifice paddocks last year, but this is just the next step again," Mr Stoll said, referring to their decision to install the drought lot.
"Everyone could see the writing was on the wall, the way the season was going."
In late October, the Stolls attended a LLS course on how to set-up a drought lot, which also helped them be successful in receiving grant funding that was available specifically for drought lots.
Mr Stoll said the course had been promoted to help manage and preserve ground cover and pasture in the dry season - their own pastures being based on phalaris, clover and lucerne.
They also used dual purpose wheat and canola to fill the winter feed gap.
The Stolls built their drought lot in March, and haven't used it yet, but expect to this summer.
The lot will contain their Merino ewes. These ewes are the base of their self-replacing flock, which is run in conjunction with a cow herd, cropping, and, in better seasons, traded cattle.
A key feature of their drought lot is the ease with which they will be able to feed-out.
Mr Stoll said the feeding would be done as trail feeding in the pens. This was made easy by their laneway design.
The laneway runs through the middle of the drought lot, with four pens on either side.
The pens on one side will be used as holding pens, while the pens on the opposite side will be used as feed-out pens.
Movement of the sheep is made easy because the gates from the pens on each side of the laneway open into the laneway, so the sheep are directed from their holding pen into the corresponding feeding pen.
Once feeding was done, the ewes would returned to the holding pens.
The drought lot fences are constructed with seven-line hingejoint wire and maxi-posts are used every second post, with the posts at three-metre spacings.
Field bins will also be put in the pens to create shade.
The Stolls were able to go ahead with the drought lot thanks to a new bore they drilled last year, which gave them the necessary water supply.
"You can't do anything until you've got water - that's where the government drought fund's been extremely beneficial, to get those things up and running," Mr Stoll said, as they had also applied for a retrospective grant for that water supply.
With an allowance of four square metres per ewe, the lot will hold about 500 head to a pen.
Mr Stoll said they would put their ewes on maintenance rations, and based on the seasonal outlook, would likely be joining the ewes while in the drought lot.
They were aiming to get the ewes through to the end of January on stubble, and then into the drought lot in early February.
The flock has just finished lambing and the lambs would be weaned onto lucerne paddocks at 12-13 weeks old.
Mr Stoll said they hoped they might fluke a summer storm or two to keep the lucerne going, as advice they had received suggested lambs didn't perform as well as mature ewes in a drought lot environment.
They also expected to have some grain and canola silage they could feed the lambs.
"We made a heap of it (canola silage) last year and it was brilliant," he said.
They will know in the next 10 days whether they will cut this year's canola crop for silage, and how much, but they would also like to keep some for grain if the season permits.
If it doesn't rain enough, they are ready with their drought lot and will be able to retain their core sheep flock.
They had already sold a lot of sheep and cows last year and have stopped trading cattle this year due to the season.
This reduced the amount of feeding required, and created short term cash flow.
"And that's one thing about this drought, is you can get out," he said.
The challenge from here was how to shore-up future cash flow, which was where the drought lot would play a key role in retaining their ewe base, and in getting those ewes back in lamb.
The course in which the Stolls partook was run by the Riverina LLS and was rolled out across six locations, at which 150 landholders learnt how to design a stock management area (drought containment lot) unique to their property, a LLS spokesperson said.
Information included necessary infrastructure, conservation of groundcover and pastures, common animal health issues when containment feeding, and other considerations including shade and water.
The workshops were followed with one-on-one meetings between a LLS agriculture advisory officer and individual farmers to iron out the design and give sign-off for construction.
Incentive funding was offered to those who participated, with some eligible producers receiving up to $10,000.
The LLS said, so far, 65 containment areas had been built across the Riverina with its assistance.
