The Snowy Valleys have taken some of their first steps towards recovery following the bushfires that tore through the area.
Farmers gathered at the Adelong Servicemen's Club last week to hear advice from the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Local Land Services on the post-fire decisions they now face.
DPI Rural Resilience officer, Ted O'Kane said there were around 70 fire-affected farmers in attendance.
"The main issue is what do people do with their stock when they're burnt out or partially burnt out," Mr O'Kane explained.
"These producers have gone from a pretty reasonable season to a drought effectively."
Mr O'Kane said it was important for fire-affected farmers to analyse both the costs of keeping their breeding herd and the costs of selling, further down the track.
"Say you sell all your maiden ewes or all your heifers, how does that impact on your long term cash flow?That's what you have to weigh up," Mr O'Kane said.
"The other considerations are if I do decide to feed, do I have the finance to do that in the short term, do I have the infrastructure.
"A lot of people are not geared up for long term feeding and we don't know how long it will be before they can stop feeding."
Mr O'Kane said it was also important to offer farmers logical rationale during what is a very emotional time.
"We're giving them the information so they can make those decisions without the rattly, 'what am I going to do now?' response," Mr O'Kane said.
"I could see that when I went around with people in their paddocks, they're firing off in all directions, 'I think I'll have to sell some stock, no maybe I can feed those.'
"It's very hard to make decisions in that moment."
Mr O'Kane said for many attending it was the first time they had seen each other since the fires.
"In the rural resilience program we recognise that the best thing for people at the start of a recovery program is to break the circuit a little bit, get off their farm and mix again," he said.
Cattle farmer, James Miller from Ellerslie, between Adelong and Tarcutta, had half his property burnt out.
He said he still has fat cattle but knows it won't take long before they go backwards so he is weighing up whether to sell.
"The prices are still good considering, I was surprised at how much I got for my steers the other day at Wagga," Mr Miller said.
"It's pretty early to start to feed, if we don't get an Autumn break like we didn't last year, you can't feed through winter, it's too long a time.
"But if we get a decent rain soon, we have summer grasses that might bounce back, they reckon a fire might even do it good."
Snowy Valleys Shire mayor, James Hayes said the recovery-focused day marked the start of a new beginning.
"It's a time to reflect and a time to plan for the future," Mr Hayes said.
"We'll get out of it, we'll be badly scarred but we'll get there."
