His main concern now is that it takes about a week for the water to recede from his property.

“As soon as we heard the low pressure system was coming we put our cattle onto the lower paddocks to eat those down before moving them to high ground,” he said.

“But with the small amount of rain initially predicted we were not expecting to get what was about four times that amount of rain.”

He said because drainage of farmland on the southern side of the Shoalhaven River relies on flood channels, it can take a lot longer to dry out than land on the northern side. 

“The northern farms go under quicker than ours but they also drain quicker once the water in the river starts to drop.

“For us now it’s a waiting game, waiting for the flood mitigation system to bring the water down.”

“We have enough feed, we’re not really stressed.

“Our production dropped about 10 per cent over the last two days.

Mr Cochrane said there were farms on the other side of the river that were inundated far worse in floods than his.

The call has gone out for farmers who can spare fodder for milking cows. Anyone who can spare a couple of bales of hay or some silage can phone Greg Duncan at Dairy Australia on 0477 044 047, DPI on 0411 139 585 or local land services on 0428 626 332.