After a weekend deluge, some farms in Northland are still under water as days of steady rain make conditions impossible for farmers to manage stock.
Drone footage shot over a farm at Hikurangi that once had more than 1,000 cattle grazing on it shows the farm swamped in murky floodwater.
Farmer, Geoff Crawford, says he’s had to send half of his stock away.
“At the moment we've got about 40 hectares with about 600 cows on, so we're feeding them on farms with maize and kernel and GDT mix and some silage and as the water recedes then we'll evaluate and hopefully cut our feeding back and get some grass back but it's going be two months before we have any sign of where we are going to be,” he told 1 NEWS.
While the heaviest downfall hit last weekend, it has rained steadily throughout the week, the sodden ground not getting a chance to drain.
Mr Crawford said friends stepped up and managed to get over 200 cows to Kaitaia and the rest were sent to Auckland.
The once-in-500-year weather event that ripped through Northland on the weekend, also caused damage to homes and roads.
A massive clean-up has been underway in Whangārei after the district got 220mm of rain in 10 hours.
Thirty people were evacuated from their homes in Whangārei over the weekend and stayed in Civil Defence centres in Onerahi and Kamo.
It comes after the region has been hit hard by drought this year.
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