Sheep farmers who have begun winter lambing are bracing for prolonged dry weather and taking steps to ensure their animals have enough feed.
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Dalton grazier Kelly Dowling expects nine thousand new lambs to arrive before August. Her focus was to get heavy-bellied ewes and their fragile young through until spring.
"It all happens at once, the cold comes, no moisture, no grass and they lamb," she said.
Ms Dowling said the farm was nearing its highest carrying capacity and the most resource-intensive period of the year.
"It is crunch time now," she said. "We have our maximum amount of head coming onto the ground in the next three months. It is the most pressure we have all year."
Sub-soil moisture has been diminishing after a "non-existent autumn" and dry start to winter. Chilly temperatures have caused frosts which tend to suck further moisture from the ground.
The Bureau of Meteorology's seasonal outlook predicts dry conditions from July to September with below average rainfall for the southern half of mainland Australia.
Winter crop production is forecast to fall by 33 per cent in 2017-18, largely due to an assumed fall in average yields across the country, according to the Australia Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences report.
In the region there has been below average rainfall for both June and May. In Goulburn, June brought 10.4 mm, well below the 60mm monthly average, and in May 30.4 mm fell, 2.4mm below the monthly average.
So far in July there has been 3.4mm of rainfall at Goulburn.
Ms Dowling has begun supplementary feeding once a week, distributing grain paddock by paddock.
For now it is lupins. But the plan is to ramp up the frequency and add more grain to the diets as ground cover continues to thin.
"By feeding every mob I am seeing how they are faring," she said.
"The contingency is that we are backing that we will get a spring. We will feed the ewes and all the weaners from last year and get ourselves to spring. If we don't get a spring then that is when we would have a plan for selling some or something."
Ms Dowling said things were far from desperate at this stage. However, she had put $36,000 in sowing new pasture for a paddock and needed moisture to ensure the investment paid off and delivered spring feed.
"We have been preparing it for two years really to sow it down which we did in early April," she said. "We need moisture to keep it going. Rain won't give us a lot of growth now anyway, but what we want it for now is to give us the spring growth."
Winter lambing meant the next months could be hard-going, but Ms Dowling said each year they prepared for that knowing the system delivered benefits at other times of year.
"I don't mind putting out some supplementary energy in grain to get the ewe by in that tough time, and it may well be a fairly tough winter if we don't get any rain," she said.
"There are pros and cons to everything. Our benefit is that all our weaned lambs go onto good spring grass, and we get ours through summer and don't have to feed our weaners as much, and have a lower weaner loss."
Ms Dowling said smart planning was a vital safeguard but despite the lack of moisture there was plenty to smile about in the rural sector.
"We will take rain whenever it comes and make the most of it because we can't turn that tap on," she said.
"It tightening up with moisture is one small thing. We have historically great mutton, beef and wool markets. We've waited a fair while for to align, so the moisture is one thing in what is otherwise an amazing time for the rural industry."
