Droving (Sheep)

DROVING

By the mid fifties droving had made a bit of a turn around in so far as 'home comforts' for the drovers, but still, it was nothing like the 'Long Paddock' drovers of today with their caravans, generators, TV sets. fridges, and even washing machines.

Many of the modern day drovers do not own properties, they buy store cattle and put them on a TSR that has good grass, moving the cattle as slow as they are game, until the beef price rises and the cattle get a bit fatter.

Today, the horse is replaced by quad bikes or motor bikes and a few dogs, which are comfortable travelling on the back of these machines, and with the mad men that drive them.

In the fifties, although the pack saddle days were still around for cattle, the sheep drovers had trucks set up to first get the horses to the site of the start of the drive and then the truck was turned into a kitchen for the full time cook, and a store to carry the sheep breaks. The dogs were carried in crates under the truck.

The sheep break made the difference between droving sheep and droving cattle. It meant a good nights sleep for the sheep drovers as against the nervous, night watch situation with cattle drovers.

Sheep, in those days, were mainly put on the road to ' Travel for Grass', meaning that the property that owned the sheep was running out of feed, so they put stock on the Travelling Stock Routes (TSR) in the hope that feed would be available elsewhere in the country.

Naturally, the sheep would be off shears so that the owner could sell the wool to off set the cost of having the sheep on the road.

One of Queensland's longest droughts ended in 1956, but it didn't rain grass, it only rained rain, and animals got bogged down in the black soil planes to perish there, as no one could get to them until the land dried up again. The grass did come, but a lot of stock died waiting.

I did a few short drives with different boss drovers, but it is boring, mundane, mind-numbing work.

The conversation level drops to a all time low with nothing to stimulate the mind. The same thing day in and day out seven days a week, out of the swag well before daylight, get the horses that had been hobbled out, with one or two of them being belled, where I reckoned that every time it was my turn to get the horses in the dark that the ones with the Condamine Bells on would stand stock still, making me a bit of a bunny for being so long in bringing them in.

I also reckoned that on bright moonlight nights the darn animals would be standing around the camp, but not if it was my turn to 'run the horses'.

The drovers would get a good breakfast into themselves and a hot black pannican of tea, saddle up and catch up with the mob of sheep, which the boss would have let out of the break half an hour ago.

The mornings, being the cool time of the day, we would move the sheep along a bit to be in range of the next water by afternoon.

Sheep were required to travel six miles a day and cattle eight. However, if you are travelling for grass you don't seem to be able to calculate distance above a couple of mile.

Once the sheep were mobbed up and walking along reasonably, the boss, or one of us, would go back to the camp and help the cook pack the truck up, with the sheep break and cooking gear, to move on to the next nights camp.

The sheep break consisted of some rolls of pig wire netting, star pickets and hobble straps. The break could be rolled out to make a self standing round yard, or if a fence was available a yard using the fence for the major side of the break would be easier and better to have.

After laying out the netting, you would drive a star picket into the ground at the joining points of the netting, which had each end attacked to a batten, the two battens from each length of netting would be hobble strapped to the star picket and then this was done around until the last length of netting was in placed.

Naturally, all this netting would be loose, even still lying on the ground, so at intervals you would put a star picket inside the netting and walk it out backwards as far as you could pull or until you had started a round shape. This was continued until all the netting was standing up and as tight as you could pull on it.

A round shape is a lot better than having corners. Sheep naturally run in circles, corners become pressured with a mob of upset bleaters, and a yard with lots of corners would not hold them.

The last panel of netting, which would  close against the fence, would then be opened and pulled back to make a 'gate' for the sheep to be herded into each night. The tighter the mob inside these breaks the better. If there was any space, and a dingo disturbed the mob the sheep could run and jump at the fence and if excited enough, push the lot to the ground. Big trouble for the sheep drover. Something like the painting by Tom Roberts at the top of the page, only in the dark of night.

Travelling for grass, even after you had moved the sheep onwards, you could look back and see last nights camp and after the truck went past, you would be able to see the next nights camp...Six mile a day, what a joke. Boss drovers had an uncanny sense as to where the Stock Inspectors might be, most of the time.

The only time we would get a bit of a hurry on was when the TSR went through private property. The grazier, on the property, would send his blokes down to keep his stock away form the droving mob, and that was all they were allowed to do..Supposedly. The unmentioned instructions to the property men would be to try to move the mob on without looking like that is what was going on.

This was a bit of fun, as the drovers would pull back from the mob and let the property men "pretend" that they were not moving our sheep on.

Everyone knew what everyone else was doing, but no one would admit it to anyone.

By the time the sheep were put away, it would be dark again and the night meal would be consumed, someone would help the cook wash up and then we would hit the sack until early the next day, same old same old.

At about mid morning the sheep would look for a bit of a rest, and after they were "Road Broke" they would all pick the same time every day to rest. The drovers would then catch up on a bit of kip under a shady tree if available or on the shady side of the horse.

During the rest time you would chomp on a bit of damper and some cold mutton, and boil the quart-pot for a cuppa, using the water from neck bags on the horse, or from a bit of a ride to the camp.

One of the last jobs I had in Queensland was droving sheep from Darr Siding, out along the Winton road, to Isisford, almost fifteen weeks on the road. My wages were twenty quid a week and keep plus tobacco.

A fence on on side of a droving mob was called the "Blind Shepard", it made life a lot easier for the men, who would consist of the boss, and maybe two other drovers to look after up to four thousand head of sheep.

Water for the sheep was obtiained from Government bores or from property bore drains that criss-crossed the TSR.

Dogs were good to have with sheep droving, but often the country carried a cover of galvanised burr, which would cut a dog's pads to pieces in less than an hour. Sometimes you could get your dog to wear leather shoes, and if the dog knew what protection they gave them, would come to their boss to get the shoes put on.

For the short couple of hours from putting the sheep in the break to hitting the swag, we would sit around the camp-fire, maybe looking out at the shine of the yellow eyes of a dingo or two, and tell blatant lies that we all believed, yeah!

It was a bit strange but the drovers dogs would not bark at the dingos, who didn't bark themselves, only howl. It seemed to be a bit of the "Code of the dog" not to dob your mate in.

One bloke, at the camp-fire one night sat quiet, not getting into the discussion on big mobs of stock that they had been on drives with. I was a new chum at droving so they wouldn't have listened to me if I did have something to say. The mobs got up to six-thousand head of sheep, five thousand head of cartel and kept growing.

Because I had the sense not to join in I asked, the silent Charlie "What about you, mate, you have been droving for awhile, what's the biggest mod you have been with?"

Charlie, who was normally the silent type looked as he was a bit uncomfortable taking the floor, but he did come up with an answer to my question:

"Well, seei n' as ya' asked, an' I can't remember how many sheep we had on the road, but I wuz in charge of the dogs, an' there were two thousand of them".

No body said nuffin' after that.