Thousands of turkeys will struggle to get to Christmas tables this year because a limited phone service made it difficult for a farmer to get the birds to customers.
John and Robyn Watson grow and process about 30,000 turkeys a year on their free-range farm near Pooginagoric in South Australia's south-east.
The festive season accounts for about half their income, and they estimate about 250,000 people will eat their product on Christmas Day.
But a problem with the Watson's phone meant it barely rang — and they do not have mobile phone coverage at their factory at a crucial time of year.
It took seven days for the issue to be resolved which Mr Watson said made it difficult to make deliveries at this time of year.
"Hopefully all our orders are in and most of the coordination was done in the weeks leading up to this, so hopefully it will be okay," Mr Watson said.
"You just can't comprehend how much grief it's causing us.
Soaring temperatures turn up heat
The biggest concern for the Watsons was organising the logistics given the hot weather without an incoming phone.
"We've got this ridiculous heatwave coming with temperatures soaring past 40C for four days in a row," Mr Watson said.
"We've got to deal with that as well as try to coordinate freight so there's no hiccups and our product doesn't deteriorate ... there's no room for error."
"We don't necessarily try to sell any more [at Christmas], we just push flat strap all the time, but the price of ham, pork products have all gone up and also crayfish is over $100 a kilogram," Mr Watson said.
"Everything else has gone through the roof, and I think that's really starting to swing back where people say, 'Oh well, we had pork for a few years now, it's a lot more this year so we'll try turkey for something different'."
Just another challenge
Despite the strong demand, drought and increased feed prices have had an effect on the business.
"I think our feed is about $60 a tonne more than it was this time last year," Mr Watson said.
"We haven't passed all that cost on to our customers, we've tried to absorb as much as we can, but it will make a bit of a difference to the bottom line."
The Watson's telephone service provider is Activ8me.
The company said in a statement that it had been working closely with the couple and conducted a significant amount of troubleshooting.
It said the problem seemed to be related to a network issue and a Telstra technician visited the exchange and had now resolved the issue.
Telstra regional general manager Mark Bolton said in a statement that Telstra encouraged anyone experiencing issues with mobile or landline services to contact their provider to report a fault.
