Waterford Farm

Waterford Farm "Waterford Farm" Is a commercial Lucerne and pasture hay producer and home of Gunnedah Native Trees. A Commercial Farm Tree Nursery. Servicing NSW

focused on delivering quality Lucerne and pasture hay and great quality replacement farm trees.

21/06/2026

Spring has started early here at Waterford Farm. With the quiet time from the wind up of hay production for this season. We have been busy preparing for a big expansion in the Native Tree Nursery coming in Spring. A large assortment of new varieties of Trees, Shrubs, Ground Covers and Grasses will soon be filling the nursery as well as our expansive selection of our regular varieties. We are so excited to be able to offer something for everyone. Hope everyone is keeping warm and well and Leon still has a nice supply of Pumpkins and bagged Naval and Valencia Oranges available and 15kg bags of Firewood and kindeling for the cool nights that will arrive soon.

Kind Regards

Mel and Leon
😃

18/05/2026

Let it Rain...
It has been a long season and mighty hot summer and all and any rain is much needed. Sadly we have sold out of hay. I do keep an eye on the market and local hay posts. It is uncertain times and the market is running red hot with unbelievable prices and thats if you can secure the hay. A few things that have grabbed my attention is the amount of scammers so as a grower and seller of hay I thought I would give a few ideas that hopefully might help when buying in the marketplace in the current market.
1. If you haven't delt with the seller before ask can you come look at the hay or send someone to look at the hay. I know hay is moving fast but the key here is what they answer. If they say no or give excuses why you can't, then It would raise a red flag. Doesn't matter if you are going to look at the hay or not. You want to know if you are outlaying money you can see what your purchasing.
2. If Someone says they will deliver and you have to put down a deposit for the hay and small fuel deposit, and has not quoted you a delivery cost ontop of the hay price, be wary especially if the hay is not local to you. There has been a scam where they are taking a deposit for the hay and $50 for fuel. Once paid then the purchaser is blocked and never hears from the seller again.
3. If buying from Southern Queensland make sure it is from a Fire Ant Free Zone and all relevant stat Dec are signed. Same for any livestock producer that needs to know any chemicals sprayed and witholding periods for there livestock. You can always request a stat Dec from any producer to comply with MLA or NLIS.
4. If you do have to purchase from far away try asking friends, neighbours etc who also have livestock if you can work together to share the freight cost.

I hope everyone is keeping well and I hope maybe something I touched on helps someone.

Mel 🙂

07/04/2026

The Hay Situation..
In the next few weeks the hay season will be wrapping up until Spring. After an extremely dry and hot summer all the indicators are pointing to a possible hay shortage for the winter in the NorthWest and possibly further. Alot of people are already out of feed and are feeding out now. Meaning what producers would have been putting away for winter months is already being sold. If you think you may need to feed over winter I highly recommend securing your feed early as often when hay is short everyone is trying to source hay at the same time leaving limited option for supply and price if you do secure it. If you are out of hay and need to feed now we do have General Purpose Stockfeed Hay available. It isn't beautiful top of the line hay. It is dryland pasture hay that if your animals were agisted here they would be eating in the paddocks. Currently quite a few horses owners are using it to feed out to there horses who's paddocks are barron. The bales are $8 per bale inc. For the cattle and sheep producers we have the $8 bales or $6 bales that have been stored outside and are a good source of fodder.
I know the season has been difficult for alot of people and hope things get better for all soon.

Have a great day! :)
Mel

The pictures Im about to share has a deceased animal in it so please feel free to keep scrolling if you need to. The Con...
23/03/2026

The pictures Im about to share has a deceased animal in it so please feel free to keep scrolling if you need to.
The Content of why Im sharing these images
Is very Important given the Importance of the animal.
A week and a half ago an animal was found deceased in the nursery. It appeared to have been electricuted by the overhead power lines. We worked out quickly that it was a glider. Which none of us on the farm had ever seen before. So I started asking around to different wildlife organisations. ( The reason we have the pictures was to try and Identify the type of glider) We were assured it was most likely a kreft Glider and they are common in this area. That is until this past weekend I had a lovely customer who was a Fauna Ecologist that stopped in at the nursery. We started chatting and I showed him the pictures and he was blown away. He told me that that was most certainly not a Kreft Glider but a Squirrel Glider on the Threatened species list for NSW. Unfortunately we have had another deceased Glider that appears to have passed away in the same spot from the powerlines. We will be placing Nesting Boxes in the Nursery and hope the colony can build up again from here. We are so over the moon that the eco systems we are creating are beneficial to the wildlife we may not even know that are there.

SOLD OUT NEXT LOT BEING MADE NEXT WEEK. Freshly baled Pasture Hay Good Quality baled this morning. Limited amount. $15 i...
18/03/2026

SOLD OUT NEXT LOT BEING MADE NEXT WEEK.
Freshly baled Pasture Hay Good Quality baled this morning. Limited amount. $15 inc.
Call out to the Farm today.

27/02/2026

Let's Talk About The Elephant In The Room...
This is the one dirty word no farmer or livestock owner ever wants to hear. DROUGHT...
The dry, hot, long summer has certainly take its toll. Lack of rainfall and the concern that we may have come full cycle and into our next drought. I know personally thinking back to the last Drought which does not seem that long ago it gives me a sense of dread. Last time around we had pigs in the thousands, 50 head of cattle and 150 head of sheep. But what I really want to know is what did we learn? How do we prepare?
For us personally the big key factors were have an exit strategy. I watched alot of Farmers hang on well after they couldn't afford to. Hoping that things would change.
I watched farmers lose everything. Believe me we nearly did. It has been years of fighting to get to a safer spot. One of the key elements we learnt was if it hadn't rained by this date we needed to off load a certain amount of stock. The next call was to have another date for the next evaluation and so on. Not many people are in a situation where they can have feed stored for 12 months or more. Money is the big factor. Hay becomes short as production becomes harder and the fodder needs more water and time to grow and extra input costs. Which makes feed expensive. When you can put away feed do as much as you can. Anything is better than nothing. Know who you are dealing with if you are buying feed from an unknown source. You can always ask a stock and station agent, friend etc to go and check out the producer if your unsure. If the producer objects that should be a red flag. Alot of scams were happening down south in Victoria in the last few months with people paying for hay before it was made and also just general scammers pretending to be hay dealers and then losing there money. Ask for help if you need it. It feels very lonely. But your not alone drought deteriates the land but also affects the overall well-being of those living it. If anyone has any other ideas please feel free to add to my write up. May rain fall soon and we can look at the dry weather in the rear view mirror.
Have a great weekend!
Mel

Freshly baled nice quality Lucerne Pasture Hay. $15 per bale inc. Call out to the Farm today.
27/02/2026

Freshly baled nice quality Lucerne Pasture Hay. $15 per bale inc.
Call out to the Farm today.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!We will be open for all hay and nursery supplies all of Christmas and New Years. We a...
23/12/2025

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
We will be open for all hay and nursery supplies all of Christmas and New Years. We are open from Sunrise to Sunset and if you need to come after after hours just give me a call and it can be arranged.
Mel 0499 423473

Kind Regards
Mel and Leon de Groot 😃

Lucerene hay baled this morning.$15 per bale inc. Call out to the Farm, open 7 days.
17/12/2025

Lucerene hay baled this morning.
$15 per bale inc.
Call out to the Farm, open 7 days.

03/12/2025

It has been such a busy few months I have not had time to post a lot. Leon has just come in from raking hay and whilst he was down in one of the paddocks made a few videos. So I felt I would share. One of the big projects we have been working on for the last 5 years has been our planting and natural Regeneration of our paddocks. I have been asked many times why would you cut down your hay production area? The simple answer has been we used to do 4- 5 cuts per year of lucerene depending on the conditions and now we are doing 2 cuts per year for the same volume. ( 45,000 - 50,000) bales per year total. With the combination of going chemical free on our paddocks and the replacement of the trees the eco system has transformed and works for us. The eco systems, micro organisms and bacterias, fungi and other detremental organic matter and insects have restructured and control pests and diseases that once were problematic to our production. The lucerene has grass growing through it and yes that would bother some people but it has shown more beneficial to have the grass balancing the lucerene in gut health for livestock and horses without having to worry about chemical residues. It doesn't happen over night. In general when you stop using chemicals it takes 7 years before you start to notice the results. We push debris such as branches up around the trees as they are important to the eco systems. Dead trees are also extremely important in keeping as they are habitats for birds and other native animals who also are a benefit to balancing the eco system eating grubs and other insects. Alot of our paddocks are returning to native pasture which has become a very important part of feeding all animals for good general health and especially after disasters like fire, flood, drought etc.
I will leave you with Leons Movies and see what you think.
We hope you have a wonderful day!
Mel and Leon
Waterford Farm Native Tree Nursery

Address

10844 Kamilaroi Highway
Gunnedah, NSW
2380

Telephone

+61499423473

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Waterford Farm posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Waterford Farm:

Shortcuts

Share

Category