Australia Weather News

A Red Centre cattle station has decided to bring forward its muster because of continuing rain.

Rain is always welcome in Central Australia but managing the wet can be a problem when it is time to muster.

About 100 kilometres south of Alice Springs, the Orange Creek crew made a dash for cattle fearing more rain this week could disrupt plans.

The station's owner operator Wally Klein coordinated the five-person job.

"With the chopper, we are going to yard some cattle that we sold a few weeks ago," he said.

"[Because of the rain] we haven't been able to trap them [near water]".

Mr Klein said the muster had been brought forward because if forecast rain eventuated cattle may not be able to reach the yards because of a flowing creek.

He said the livestock was a group of breeding cattle destined for South Australia.

As the muster got underway a mob of cattle were spotted near a dam and Mr Klein was not keen to approach them in his four-wheel drive.

"I don't want to turn them away from the chopper," he said.

"I don't want to disturb them. They are settled there nicely."

On mustering techniques, Mr Klein said he was not using motorbikes this year because of the stress they could put on cattle and general safety.

"I rode a bike through a fence I didn't see. It tore my lips off and left my jugular vein exposed," he said.

"It was very close.

"We've had our share of bad luck over the years because it's a high risk, dangerous job."

Mr Klein also said that often motorbike riders put too much pressure on cattle during muster.

"Especially if your working in scrub," he said.

"The cattle get stirred up quickly and so I'm going back to using vehicle to keep the cattle calm and for safety reasons."

The plan said Mr Klein was working well with their broader mustering strategy of trapping cattle in holding paddocks that have water sources.

After some bush bashing in the four-wheel drive and losing one bull that jumped a fence, Mr Klein and the team were able to put just over 100 cattle in the yard for trucking.

"It's about half of what we need," he said.

"You don't do much about it in this wet weather but there should be enough there to fill our orders."