The critical role fencing plays

A fence on a livestock farm can make the difference between making money or losing it, keeping stock and humans safe, making sure animals get enough feed, and preventing the spread of disease.

So it should be no surprise that replacing the tens of thousands of kilometres that were lost across the North Island during Cyclone Gabrielle has become the focus of a major volunteer and fundraising push launched on Friday – Post Your Support.

The provincial president for Hawke’s Bay Federated Farmers, Jim Galloway, said the first thing farmers worried about was the boundary fence that separates them from roads and neighbours.

It keeps stock off roads and contained within the farm – so when it’s gone, there are both safety issues and potential economic losses.

Central Hawke’s Bay deer farmer Evan Potter had 45 red deer stags escape into surrounding hills after deer fencing was wiped out in a slip.

About 20 had since been retrieved or returned, and he was trying to entice the others back with a combination of tempting food and by putting hinds (female deer) behind a gate – the breeding season was under way and stags were looking for a mate.

Potter calculated about 2km of fences needed to be repaired on his property.

‘‘The problem is that fences are damaged in hundreds of spots, not one long section. Patching spots takes much longer than fixing a single section of fence,’’ he said. Cost? ‘‘I haven’t wanted to do the numbers,’’ Potter said.

Hawke’s Bay sheep and beef farmer Rob Poulton said the cost to rebuild slips on his farm would possibly reach $300,000, based on an estimated rate of $30,000/km or $30 a metre.

The Post Your Support campaign is pledging to repair fencing at a cost of $20 a metre, with rural supplies co-op Farmlands offering discounted materials to be paid for with money donated by businesses and the public.

Internal fences

Internal fences are used to manage the farm. Using them correctly could make a difference between how much grass a farmer had, breeding the right genetics, keeping animals healthy and more, Galloway said.

For example, on a sheep farm,

‘‘at this time of year, specific ram sheep are placed with specific mobs of ewes’’, Galloway said, to meet genetic targets farmers were aiming for in their livestock.

The same applied on a deer or cattle farm, where a specific bull or stag was put with cows or hinds, he said. Fences were also used to keep rams away from young ewe lambs that were not ready to mate yet, Galloway said.

Grass

‘‘The next big thing is managing your grass. It’s a bit like, if I go to a buffet, I’ll eat more than I need, because it’s there,’’ Galloway said. ‘‘Stock are like that too. They’ll get into a paddock with a lot of grass, and they’ll eat more than they need.’’

Fences were used to ration feed, and make sure livestock got as much as they needed. Often moveable electric fences were used for this, and damage to electricity supplies had been a concern in that regard.

Galloway said heading into winter, it was important to manage feed, as there was less feed available.

‘‘You need to make sure that you control the grass [and access stock has to it] otherwise you will run out of feed by the end of winter, and stock will go hungry,’’ Galloway said.

Disease

The Ministry for Primary Industries warned earlier this month that cases of salmonella and leptospirosis increased on farms after Cyclone Gabrielle, and farmers were told they could help stop people getting sick by vaccinating livestock.

MPI’s director for animal health and welfare, Dr Carolyn Guy, said there were multiple flow-on effects from flood damage to fencing.

Animal husbandry [breeding] could be affected, but day-to-day farm management tasks could also take much longer than usual, she said.

Broken fences made it hard for farmers to move or treat sick animals, or vaccinate them against disease, she said.

It also made mustering livestock for transport extremely difficult, Guy said.

‘‘[It] can also be more difficult for stock to access water troughs which are no longer close at hand, and there is a much higher likelihood of unplanned pregnancies as males intermingle with females.’’

Diseases can spread in different ways, one of them being direct transmission from animal to animal.

One of the basic units of biosecurity was properties that were fully fenced off, she said.

To date, MPI had coordinated the delivery of more than 65 tonnes of critical farm supplies to remote and cut-off communities, with fencing equipment one of the top requests for rural supplies from isolated communities, Guy said.

The way forward

On Tuesday, the Government introduced the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Bill to help streamline the recovery and rebuild from Cyclone Gabrielle.

The legislation was similar to legislation passed following the Christchurch and Kaikōura earthquakes, modifying existing legislation in order to remove constraints on recovery, Emergency Management and Rural Communities minister Kieran McAnulty said.

Galloway said the emergency bill allowed farmers to rebuild farm areas, like culverts or farm access roads, without getting a consent to do so.

The bill extended these rights until October, but Galloway said farmers often did not build during winter as it was too wet, and he hoped the emergency bill would be extended.