Heartbreaking stories of hundreds of cattle being swept away and farmers desperately trying to save livestock are emerging from the record-breaking flood emergency in northern NSW.
Paul Weir is a dairy farmer at Tuncester outside Lismore and thought he'd lost his entire milking herd — some 300 animals — when he watched them wash away in floodwater on Monday.
"Just to watch them start to swim away. I saw some just jam into trees.
"You just wish them well. it was a feeling very surreal … it's everyone's worst nightmare to see."
Some cows have since washed up in Lismore alive, and Mr Weir said he arrived back at his dairy farm to find up to 100 cows.
"Thankfully, to my utter amazement, there's way more cows here than I thought," he said.
"Thankfully, the tractor started this morning, and we could get some feed out …there's no fences to contain them, so hopefully, they will be happy to stand around the high point here."
Mr Weir is still estimating the damage bill but says it will be well more than a million dollars.
"It's a big task. Where do you start?" he said.
Kayaker herds cows to safety
Elsewhere, there's been some good news for beef cattle farmers Lynda and David Croker, who live upstream of the Richmond River at Geneva, west of Kyogle.
Ms Croker said 80 per cent of their 430-acre property was under water, but luckily their beef cattle herd was high and dry.
She said it was thanks in part to her sister, who set out on a kayak to herd the animals to safety.
"We live on a hill, so we brought 35 head of cattle over twice, and we woke yesterday, and they were standing in the middle of the water, and we tried to get them out and call them over," Ms Croker said.
"She came out in a kayak … and David just said, 'Go this way, bring them up that way, there's a fence there', and she just brought them all up.
"So, it was lovely that she came. She was like an angel, really."
Pig farmer isolated
Further south in the Clarence Valley, a free-range pig farmer has a very uncertain week ahead after the heavy rain and flooding.
Scott Graham is isolated on his farm at Lawrence and running short of feed for his 150 pigs, of mostly heritage breeds.
He also did not know if or when he could next get his animals to market.
Mr Graham said they had no access to town, with both roads cut-off.
"The pigs are high and dry. We did lose a few small pigs because of the sheer amount of water we've had and the mud it's created," he said.
"We try and make sure our lactating sows get their full complement."
Farmers need help
The vice-president of dairy lobby group, EastAUSmilk, Graham Forbes, said farmers were surprised at how quickly the rain event came and didn't have time to prepare.
"A lot of farmers had 300-400 millimetres of rain over a 12-hour period, with large amounts of rain either side, so they were impacted almost immediately," he said.
"There's just huge impacts throughout the industry and, NORCO farmers have been impacted very heavily."
He said the ice cream factory at Lismore had also been affected.
"It's just a total disaster," Mr Forbes said.
"And the feed mill at Lismore has been significantly affected, so there's going to be big implications to dairy farmers throughout the region."
Mr Forbes said farmers were resilient but would need a lot of help.
"It's been an effort to save lives, and as it moves on, it will be an effort to help the community," he said.
"And I just ask everyone to all pull together to help the farming community."
The NSW Department of Primary Industries and Local Land Services has activated the Joint Agricultural and Animal Services Functional Area to provide assistance to farmers and has set up a control centre at Grafton.
Farmers needing help are able to contact the Agricultural and Animal Services Hotline on 1800 814 647 for advice on evacuation and assistance for emergency care for livestock.
