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Spring bloat

The spring rains have been welcomed across most of the country, but farmers are being warned to keep on eye on their cattle's health.

NSW Beef Livestock Officer Alastair Rayner says he's already seeing a number of cattle suffering from bloat and pulpy kidney disorders.

He says lush pastures with a high level of clover or legumes are the main cause.

Mr Rayner says producers have a number of control measures available to them.

"The first one is to not graze hungry cattle on bloat type pastures so pastures with a high legume content. Other people have used very successfully things like bloat oil in water. Other people have also resorted to using bloat bombs which can work very well but again they don't always work."

Dairy confidence

Cows are in short supply nationwide and that's restricting the growth of the Australian dairy industry, according to the latest industry outlook survey.

Dairy Australia is still predicting growth of between 1 and 2 per cent for the coming year, but says that if more replacement heifers and cows were available, that number would be between 2 and 3 per cent.

The lack of cows is the result of a tough season last year, when many farmers made the decision to significantly cull their herds.

Things are looking up now, though, with the survey of 340 Australian dairy farmers finding 73 per cent now feel optimistic about the future of their industry.

Locally, dairy co-operative Norco says similar numbers of north coast farmers remain confident.

Their challenge is to find a use for extra milk produced at this time of year, when there's traditionally a surplus produced at during spring.

Luckily this time of year co-incides with a peak in demand for ice cream which has doubled over the last 3 years.

Norco chairman Greg McNamara says they now produce 35 million litres of ice cream a year.

"A lot of it actually now finds its way into the international market into Japan. We've picked up a lot of business in the last 12 months and probably even in the last two years and fortunately the demand for ice cream and the need to make it occurs around August and September right through until christmas time which coincides with the spring peak."

Live export reaction

As the 150 lower house federal MP's head to Canberra today, northern NSW MP Janelle Saffin plans to push her private members motion to debate whether or not Australia bans the live export of cattle to overseas countries.

She says local meat processors and beef producers want the live trade stopped.

But Casino graziers disagree, saying a ban will flood the domestic market and push down prices.

"I think they should export them because it'll just mean more cattle will come on the domestic market."

"The producer needs everything he can get out of his cattle. It's very hard to make a living."

"That would only build up more cattle on the processing operation here in Australia. You can't get the cattle killed here. We haven't got the workers or the infrastructure to do it. It's been the greatest thing in the world to get rid of those cattle."

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