For producers in the Goondiwindi region, the start of 2023 has been a stark contrast to the record rainfall and flooding of last spring.
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Off the back of a drier than average summer, graziers on the northern side of the area received some well-timed falls during autumn this year, and are now looking to conserve what is left of their bulk feed and re-assess their stocking rates heading into winter.
The Lahey family, Wyaga, were staring down the barrel of a "too many head and not enough feed" situation when "the tap turned off" in November 2022.
After receiving between 150 and 200mm of rain in September and October last year, monthly totals as low as 10mm in summer meant the graziers were being forced to consider their options.
But, falls of 50mm, 25mm, and 80mm across March, April and May respectively gave them the break they needed.
Tom Lahey said, with a rolling sum of 650mm (June 2022 to June 2023), they were in a fairly good position for this time of year.
"It was dry for the majority of the summer but we got a late break that saved us," he said.
"It was looking pretty scary until we got those two inches in the middle of March. We were going to have to do something pretty serious if it didn't rain then.
"But now, we're sitting pretty well here. There's definitely plenty of people who have been missing out on the rain and doing it a lot tougher."
Brother James Lahey, who works for a crop farming enterprise south of Goondiwindi at Boomi, said the border town had only received 150mm for the year, illustrating the patchy nature of the recent rainfall.
"It's pretty scattered," he said.
"The cotton farmers around Gundy had a pretty solid year because there was plenty of water rolling into the summer, so that was a strong season for them.
"In terms of grazing country, it was pretty tough over the summer."
Working as a chopper pilot, James said it was easy to see which areas had missed out on the recent falls, and he had seen plenty of people feeding stock west of the Boomi area.
"North of Gundy is looking good, there's some very handy crops around that area," he said.
"Then I was talking to a bloke at Texas who said it was one of the top five driest summers he's had in the last 50 years.
"There was some country along the McIntyre river west of Gundy that had 10 to 12 floods in the last 18 months, and now it's got massive cracks in the ground because the flooding stopped obviously, and it just hasn't had any rainfall. It's gone from one extreme to the other.
"That is probably the big thing - since the drought broke we've had some pretty cracking years, then all of a sudden the tap turned off, and everybody was a bit stunned."
Although they had decent amounts of feed in their area, Tom said they, and others, would be leaning on forage crops if the next few months didn't produce any rainfall.
"We're going alright for grass, but we've got oats and winter crop in to fill the gap for winter," he said.
"The oats went in earlier than a lot of the other cereal crops and that change came through at the perfect time for them.
"That definitely gave people a fair bit of confidence heading into winter."
The Lahey's have a commercial cattle operation, running predominantly F1 Wagyus, and have been working with the breed for the past 16 years.
With the cattle market slipping and feed running out, Tom said they were facing some serious decisions, in terms of stock numbers, before the autumn break.
"When we had that 50 mil of rain in March, it just changed everything. If we hadn't gotten that, we would have been destocking fairly hard," he said.
"We've destocked a bit coming into winter still, just culling for age and lesser quality, so that we have less mouths.
"We're just going to sit on the grass and be ready to pull the trigger if it does rain in spring."
Despite the current cattle market downturn, Tom said it had presented them with an opportunity to make some positive advances within their herd.
"There's plenty of opportunity, in terms of the cattle market, to upgrade the quality of your herd at the moment," he said.
"When prices were sky high last year, we bought lesser quality animals but more of them because we had the feed.
"Now you can change the way you're doing things - heading into winter we want less mouths, so we'll sell the lesser quality animals, and buy in less cattle, but of a higher quality."
