Australia-Cattle marooned in floods get first feed.

About 15 mobs of cattle ranging in size from 30 to 300 head have received aerial fodder drops since the State Government launched its $3 million flood assistance package to flooded North Queensland properties last Tuesday.

The 15 mobs are stranded on islands across nine properties along the Cloncurry River System from Cowan Downs to Shady Lagoon at Normanton in the Gulf.

DPI&F assistant director general for regional services, Tony Rayner, has been travelling extensively throughout the Gulf coordinating the fodder drops over the past week.

He said the work was having a positive impact.

Cattle were taking to the fodder and property owners and managers were reporting a marked improvement in the health and mobility of affected cattle, he said.

"I coordinated for the State Government the fodder drop in the Gulf in 1991, and I can state with a bit of background experience that this drop has gone particularly well," Mr Rayner said.

"It is getting the cattle to a point where they are strong enough to walk or swim off those islands out to fresh pastures."

The fodder drops were likely to continue for another seven to 10 days, he said, particularly in the Normanton areas where floodwater was at its deepest.

In addition to dropping fodder, the DPI&F has been using the helicopters to push cattle off islands and out onto fresh pasture where possible.

"The cattle naturally are comfortable staying on the islands, but they really need to be moved off, so in conjunction with the owners and the managers we have been pushing cattle out on to fresh feed and once they have done a bit of swimming or walking through the mud they tending to stay out on the fresh country," he said.

While it was too early to forecast the extent of flood-related losses, the good news was that flood inundated pastures appeared to be recovering as floodwaters receded, Mr Rayner said.

"We’ve had some of our scientists up there yesterday doing some sampling and assessment of pasture to help to determine the recovery period," he said.

"There was industry concern that the fact that pasture had been underwater for two to three weeks that some of that will either die or take a long time to recover.