Council have received an increase in reports of wandering or abandoned livestock within the municipality, raising concerns over the safety of residents as well as animals.
If you own livestock, please ensure they are securely fenced in and accounted for. You may also need to supplement your animals’ diet as pasture feed declines over winter.
Supplements can be used as a tool to balance up your animals’ diets, and to extend the length of a given grazing rotation, ensuring pasture is available throughout winter. Adding food supplements into your feeding system also enables stock to stay where they are for longer – and encourages animals to remain within their fence perimeter – giving grazed pasture more time to regrow before animals are moved onto it again.
If you come across wandering or abandoned animals, contact our Community Safety Officers on 5355 0200. Your vigilance can make a big difference in keeping our community safe and our primary producers’ livelihoods protected.
“Livestock escapes not only threaten farmer livelihoods, but public safety,” says Ararat Rural City Council CEO Dr Tim Harrison. “We urge our community’s farmers to review their fencing, and consider additional security measures to keep animals contained and our community protected."
For more information on managing livestock over the winter months, visit Agriculture Victoria's Feeding Livestock site.
