Drovers take advantage of good grazing ahead of summer

ABC NEWS (Australia)

With a hot and dry summer on the way, cattle producers are making the most of good pasture across Queensland's stock routes. A team of drovers is walking 2000 head of cattle on a journey that'll last for months.

Transcript

00:00 It looks like a scene from an old western movie, but this is what modern day droving

00:07 looks like.

00:08 Bill Little and his Little team will spend five months walking this herd more than 1200

00:13 kilometres.

00:14 Married to the mob.

00:15 No, it's full on.

00:18 We do the same thing every day.

00:19 We get up early, we look after the cows all day, we try and get to bed early, just do

00:23 it all again next day.

00:24 They use the dawn light to pack up camp, saddle up and get back on the road.

00:28 Oh I love it, like where else would you want to be honestly, you know?

00:32 Sun, mornings like this, it's just insane, yeah.

00:36 It takes a team of 23 dogs, at least a dozen horses and four people to keep the cattle

00:41 moving for months.

00:43 These days, droving is a rare sight, with most graziers moving their stock by truck.

00:48 Travelling less than 20 kilometres each day, the journey from Julia Creek to Tambo is a

00:54 slow one.

00:55 As the season turns and country dries up, graziers are taking advantage of the good

00:59 feed along stock routes.

01:01 Livestock agents say now is the time to buy, not to sell.

01:06 At the moment I feel very fortunate that we've got beautiful feed and we're able to take

01:10 advantage of the lower cattle prices.

01:14 Days bleed into weeks after months on the road.

01:17 The team don't know when they'll be home next.

01:20 That's a good question in our game, we don't even know what day it is half the time.

01:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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