Drought in eastern Australia has quadrupled the price of hay, and one farmer turned to watermelons to feed his cattle.
Hay stocks are shrinking as drought intensifies in New South Wales and Victoria. Feed prices have skyrocketed, and some feed has to be imported from other countries, even from far-flung Western Australia.
Cattle farmer Michael Sweeney, whose ranch is located in drought-hit Victoria Heights, has reduced his herd of cattle. He has embraced a free supply of watermelons to feed the remaining 100 beef cows on his land.
There's still a little fresh grass left on his ranch, and he's still providing hay for the cattle.
But he also chose watermelons to feed cows. At first, he said, the cow was a little scared, but now it has eaten fruit, even skin.
"the cow looked at the watermelon and said, where's my grass?"
"like most new things, it takes a few days to get used to, and hopefully they'll like it."
A day later, Michael reported that his cattle had eaten watermelons happily.
"one of them basically only eats red flesh, a lot of melon skin is left, and the other group of flesh melon skins are all eaten."
The cost of feeding watermelons, he says, is 1/4 of the cost of other feeds, including transportation costs.
"Watermelon is high in sugar and contains some vitamins. It helps to feed it with hay."
Mr. Sweeney said he was relieved by the results, because if that didn't work, he might have to eat melons himself.
The watermelons are provided free of charge by a Victoria transportation company, Kat Gration, which owns the company.
She says her transportation companies have been busy recently, busy transporting hay to drought-affected areas. Because of the drought, farmers can only rely on feed to feed cattle, some farmers may already be unable to bear the burden of feed prices.
"the volume of hay transport was so great that we worked so hard to keep up with the demand that we had to add 13 contractors."
"it's hard to find high-quality feed at a reasonable price. Many haysters with lots of stock have tripled their prices. "
She decided to buy watermelons in bulk and send them to farmers as an alternative feed for shipping only.
"drought-affected areas of the new state are also interested in feeding watermelons to cattle, and I have received a lot of advice. But even if melons are free, the cost of long-haul transportation is still higher than their budget for those struggling farmers. "
She says she has a background in the dairy industry and knows that cows eat fruit.
Farmers are generally proud, but it is now a critical moment of the year, and some have started shooting dead cows that they can't afford to feed. "
"I'm a farmer, too, and it's a bit deep in my heart."
ABC consulted several animal nutritionists about the benefits of feeding watermelon cattle.
Although there is no opinion that watermelons are harmful to cattle, experts say watermelons are less nutritionally valuable than hay, because hay contains more dry matter.
Experts also warned against feeding cattle with watermelons that were not suitable for human use, because such watermelons could be sprayed with chemicals that could be harmful to animals, and that chemicals would remain in meat after livestock were slaughtered.