One of the best-timed autumn rain breaks in many years has caused a spike in cattle prices and set up grain farmers for a promising spring harvest.
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With abundant grass, farmers are hanging on to their cattle and sheep, causing demand and prices to rise at saleyards.
Stock agent David Reid, of Queanbeyan, said cattle farmers were getting up to $50 a head more for some of their animals.
Up to 100 millimetres to 200 millimetres of rain have been recorded over a wide area west and east of Canberra.
Mr Reid said some farmers had not seen such an ideal start to autumn in 20 years.
He expects higher prices at weaner calf sales in Cooma, Goulburn, Braidwood and Queanbeyan.
Re-stockers would be buying calves to grow out to 400 kilograms before selling them to a feedlot.
Store steers had risen $50 a head, to $550-$600, from the pre-autumn rain prices of about $450-$500.
''Most people were unloading their cattle because they couldn't see any end of the drought; they were cutting their losses and getting out of the stock,'' Mr Reid said.
''All of a sudden we have had a dramatic turnaround in the space of a month since it started raining.''
Property manager Noel Davis says thick grass covering Bonshaw, between the ACT and Queanbeyan, is about 75 per cent water and needs a frost to take some of the moisture out.
''We will get some benefit. It's certainly better than no rain,'' Mr Davis said.
The ACT government does not allow pasture improvement on Bonshaw, which has 300 Angus and Angus/Hereford cross cows and 1000 breeding ewes. So the rain has given paddocks a much-needed boost.
NSW Department of Primary Industries spokesman Peter Matthews says around Harden, Young and Cootamundra, heavy falls coinciding with warmer weather have enabled farmers to plant dual purpose crops that will feed their livestock, followed by the grain harvest in spring.
Mr Matthews, a technical specialist on winter cereal crops, said the amount of early-sown grazing crops had increased as growers were looking for quick, early feed.
Closer to Canberra, Gunning has avoided expensive water carting. In February the Lachlan River was reduced to a chain of ponds and Upper Lachlan Shire was preparing for the worst.
Mayor John Shaw said the best rains he had seen in 30 years were filling Gunning's new $10 million reservoir at a rate of one megalitre a day. The dam was 12 per cent full and would be commissioned next month.
The ACT's Googong Dam is full, Cotter Dam is nearly half full and Corin Dam more than half full.
