LORRIES SHIFT 19,000 SHEEP 300 MILES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 68, 11 June 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

LORRIES SHIFT 19,000 SHEEP 300 MILES

BIG DROUGHT LOSSES ISOLATED ON AN OASIS When a New Zealand farmer loses 5 per cent, of his flock in an exceptionally bad year he considers himself ruined. In Australia it is nothing for a grazier to lose a much higher percentage during the course of a prolonged drought. To shift 10,000 sheep 300 miles over drought-stricken country is the dilficult project of Mr. idol Green, the wellknown Melbourne bookmaker and owner of Llanrheidol station. The 19,000 sheep are practically all that remain of the Llanrheidol flock of 70,000 after the drought.

For about 12 months the sheep have been roaming the country in search of grass and water, Llanrheidol station being drought-stricken. The property has now sufficient feed for the sheep, but the difficulty is to get them from Lake Machattie, south of Bedourie and near the South Australian border, to the station, owing to the intervening country being drought-stricken. The sheep are hemmed in on all sides by large tracts of drought-stricken country. Railway facilities are hundreds of miles away, and there is not the remotest chance ’of driving the sheep out of the oasis they are in and which is fast becoming dry. Mr. Spenceley, Mr. Sol Green’s manager, sexionsly considered driving the sheep to their home pastures by artificially feeding them and having portable boring plants sinking bores ahead, but this would cost as much as the sheep are worth.

Eventually, it was decided to engage motor transport at 7s # a head, and for some days Mr. Spenceley has been negotiating with lorry drivers at Longreach and Winton to convey the ’9,000 sfp*ep from Lake Machattie to Llan- ' heidol, a distance of 300 miles.