Act Now

Having an action plan and knowing when to activate it is the best way to manage through a severe dry weather. Use this table below as a guide for what to do and how to plan in each alert level.

Alert Level Action
RED
(Dry Warning)
  • Get help from trusted advisors
  • Talk to your vet about animal health issues
  • Consider de-stocking/sale of livestock
  • Organise supplementary feed
AMBER
(Dry Watch)
  • Ask for help, talk to a trusted advisor
  • Understand the weather forecasting and climate tools available
  • Know your current position
    • Current feed supply
    • Livestock numbers
    • Feed demand
    • Days of feed available to maintain animal health
  • Animals
    • Watch and review body condition score
    • Watch for health risks
  • Connect with your industry organisation
  • Attend community events and look out for each other
    • Attend your discussion group meetings
GREEN
(OK)
  • Organise a feed budget
  • Develop a dry weather plan
    • Discuss actions and strategies with your discussion group

Resources

For help to create a feed plan, contact MPI's feed planning service on 0800 FARMING or 0800 32 76 46. For general help and advice, contact the East Coast Rural Support Trust, 0800 787 254

Here are some websites with useful resources to manage dry conditions.

NIWA

Sub-seasonal rain and dry weather forecasting tool.

View Tool

MPI

Dealing with dry weather conditions.

View Website

Hawke's Bay Regional Council

Extreme Dry Hub.

View Website

Beef and Lamb

Extreme Dry Management Toolkit.

View Document

FARMAX Lite

Simple feed budgeting tool for Red Meat farms.

Register and Download

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This is a newly developed app and the first of its kind in New Zealand, so we welcome any feedback for continuous improvement. Email us your feedback

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