Droving is the practice of walking

livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

over long distances. It is a type of herding, often associated with cattle, in which case it is a cattle drive (particularly in the US). Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the aid of dogs—has a very long history. An owner might entrust an agent to deliver stock to market and bring back the proceeds. There has been droving since people in cities found it necessary to source food from distant supplies.

Description

Droving is the practice of moving

herds over long distances by walking them " on the hoof", sometimes several hundred kilometers. It was carried out by

shepherd A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of Pastoralism, pastoralist animal husbandry. ...

s. The earliest written evidence about shepherds and their dogs dates back to the 14th century. Thousands of cattle were moved along the roads of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

, and later sheep, goats, pigs and even geese and turkeys. The journey from pasture to market, slaughterhouse, or buyer could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. The herd moved during the day at a speed of 2–3 km per hour, and stopped at night to rest and graze. During the day,

herding dog A herding dog, also known as a stock dog or working dog, is a Dog type, type of dog that either has been trained in herding livestock or belongs to one of the dog breed, breeds that were developed for herding. A dog specifically trained to he ...

s ensured movement, made sure that the animals did not wander off, and at night they guarded the herd and the carts of the shepherd with their families from remaining predators, but mostly from hungry village dogs. The activity of sheepherders lost its exceptional importance for the economy only in the middle of the 19th century with the development of railway transport. Since the 1960s, the automobile transportation of livestock in special vans, which has become common, has finally replaced the commercial droving of herds. The profession of shepherd or drover is retained in some countries as a seasonal job for moving cattle and sheep to and from summer pastures. The dogs used for droving were quite large and high-legged, tireless, aggressive and extremely independent, they did not require special training and the ability to interact with other dogs. Forcing the cattle to move in the right direction, the droving dogs treated them rather rudely, biting the cows, pushing the sheep hard with their bodies and biting them. The old droving breeds include, for example, the Bouvier of Flanders, the Rottweiler, the Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, in the UK – the Old English Sheepdog.

Transport to market

One individual cannot both take care of animals on a farm and take stock on a long journey to market. So the owner might entrust this stock to an agent—usually a drover—who will deliver the stock to market and bring back the proceeds. Drovers took their herds and flocks down traditional routes with organised sites for overnight shelter and fodder for men and for animals. The journey might last from a few days to months. The animals had to be driven carefully so they would be in good condition on arrival. There would have to be prior agreement for payment for stock lost; for animals born on the journey, for sales of produce created during the journey. Until provincial banking developed, a drover returning to base would be carrying substantial sums of money. Being in a position of great trust, the drover might carry to the market town money to be banked and important letters and take with them people not familiar with the road. Drovers might take the stock no more than a part of their journey because some stock might be sold at intervening markets to other drovers. The new drovers would finish the delivery. File:Walter Withers - The Drover, 1912.jpg, Droving in Australia File:KingsSheep.JPG, Sheep droving in Kings Canyon,

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

, U.S. File:Blick von Schöne Aussicht Hütte Schaftrieb ins Schnalstal.jpg, Austrian

Tyrol Tyrol ( ; historically the Tyrole; ; ) is a historical region in the Alps of Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, f ...

File:Almabtrieb der Schafe 2014 in Schoppernau 04.JPG,

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( ; ; , , or ) is the westernmost States of Austria, state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is the state with the second-highest popu ...

, Austria File:Villefort troupeau en transhumance vers le mont Lozère.jpg,

Lozère Lozère (; ) is a landlocked Departments of France, department in the Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie in Southern France, located near the Massif Central, bounded to the northeast by Haute-Loire, to the ...

, Massif Central, France File:2,600 sheep on the road, Waioeka Gorge, after a 60 mile drive (3308575250).jpg, Waioeka Gorge, New Zealand

Drovers' roads, drovers' routes or stock routes

Drovers' roads were much wider than those for ordinary traffic and without any form of paving. The droving routes which still exist in Wales avoided settlements in order to save front gardens and consequential expense.

History

Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the aid of dogs—has a very long history. There has been droving since people in cities found it necessary to source food from distant supplies. Around 5,000 years ago the builders of

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric Megalith, megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, to ...

in southwest England feasted in the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistory, prehistoric period during which Rock (geology), stone was widely used to make stone tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years and ended b ...

on pigs and cattle and other animals from as far as northeast Scotland, some 700 km away. Romans are said to have had drovers and their flocks following their armies to feed their soldiers. Cattle drives were an important feature of the settlement of both the western

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. In 1866,

cattle drives in the United States Cattle drives were a major economic activity in the 19th and early 20th century Western United States, American West, particularly between 1850s and 1910s. In this period, 27 million cattle were cattle drive, driven from Texas to railheads in Kan ...

moved 20 million head of

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...

from

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

to railheads in

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

. In

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

, long distance drives of

sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...

also took place. In these countries these drives covered great distances— Texas to Kansas—with drovers on horseback, supported by wagons or packhorses. Drives continued until railways arrived. In some circumstances driving very large herds long distances remains economic.

Britain

A weekly cattle market was founded midway between North Wales and London in Newent,

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( , ; abbreviated Glos.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Herefordshire to the north-west, Worcestershire to the north, Warwickshire to the north-east, Oxfordshire ...

in 1253. In an '' Ordinance for the cleansing of Smythfelde'' dated 1372 it was agreed by the "dealers and drovers" to pay a charge per head of horse, ox, cow, sheep or swine. Henry V brought about a lasting boom in droving in the early fifteenth century when he ordered as many cattle as possible be sent to the

Cinque Ports The confederation of Cinque Ports ( ) is a historic group of coastal towns in south-east England – predominantly in Kent and Sussex, with one outlier (Brightlingsea) in Essex. The name is Old French, meaning "five harbours", and alludes to ...

to provision his armies in France. An act passed by

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. The only surviving son of Henry VIII by his thi ...

to safeguard his subject's herds and money required drovers, from the mid-sixteenth century, to be approved and licensed by the district court or

quarter sessions The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts that were traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388; they were extended to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535. Scotland establ ...

there proving they were of good character, married, householders and over 30 years of age. Considerable expertise meant that flocks averaging 1,500 to 2,000 head of sheep travelled 20 to 25 days from Wales to London yet lost less than four per cent of their body weight. Obliged to trek much further than from Wales, Scottish drovers would buy the cattle outright and drive them to London. It has been estimated that by the end of the 18th century around 100,000 cattle and 750,000 sheep arrived each year at London's Smithfield market from the surrounding countryside. Railways brought an end to most droving around the middle of the 19th century. Turkeys and geese for slaughter were also driven to London's market in droves of 300 to 1,000 birds. Drovers also took animals to other major industrial centres in the UK (such as South Wales, the Midlands, the Manchester region).

Australia

droving was especially important during a

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

in search of better feed and/or water or in search of a yard to work on the livestock. Some drovers covered very long distances, they explored the new country and were called "overlanders". These men could be on the road for over two years. Patsy Durack, for instance, left

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

for

the Kimberley The Kimberley is the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy Desert, Great Sandy and Tanami Desert, Tanami deserts in t ...

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

in 1885 with 8,000 cattle, arriving with only half that number some two years and two months later, completing a drive of some 3,000 miles. Indeed, long cattle drives continued well into the latter half of the twentieth century. During long "dry stages" cattle required extra care. That sometimes meant droving in the night when the temperature would drop. The standard team of men employed to move 1,200 cattle consisted of seven men: the boss drover, four stockmen, a cook and a horse-tailer. Store cattle were moved in large stocks of up to 1500 animals. Fat bullocks bred for meat were moved in mobs of about 650 head.

Europe

In medieval central Europe, annual cattle drives brought Hungarian Grey cattle across the Danube River to the beef markets of Western Europe. In the 16th century, the Swiss operated cattle drives over the St. Gotthard Pass to the markets in Bellinzona and

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

and into

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

in northern Italy. The drives had ended by 1700 when sedentary dairy farming proved more profitable. In the eighteenth century, up to 80,000 cattle were driven South from Scotland each year. From 1850, cattle trains were established from Aberdeen to London.

United States

Cattle drives involved

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

s on horseback moving

herd A herd is a social group of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic. The form of collective animal behavior associated with this is called '' herding''. These animals are known as gregarious animals. The term ''herd'' ...

s of

long distances to market. Cattle drives were at one time a major economic activity in the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is census regions United States Census Bureau As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the mea ...

, particularly between the years 1866-1895, when 10 million cattle were herded from

to railheads in

for shipments to stockyards in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

and points east. Drives usually took place in Texas on the Goodnight-Loving Trail (1866), Potter-Bacon trail (1883), Western trail (1874), Chisholm Trail (1867) and Shawnee Trail (1840s). Due to the extensive treatment of cattle drives in fiction and film, the cowboy tending to a herd of cattle has become the worldwide iconic image of the American West.

Droving feats

British feats

The 18th-century English graziers of Craven Highlands,

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

, went as far as

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

to purchase cattle stock, thence to be brought down the drove roads to their cattle-rearing district. In the summer of 1745, the celebrated Mr Birtwhistle had 20,000 head brought "on the

hoof The hoof (: hooves) is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, which is covered and strengthened with a thick and horny keratin covering. Artiodactyls are even-toed ungulates, species whose feet have an even number of digits; the ruminants with ...

" from the northern Scotland to Great Close near Malham, a distance of over .

Australian feats

William James Browne owned Nilpena Station in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia in 1879. He contracted Alfred Giles to overland 12,000 sheep to his new properties Newcastle Waters and Delamere Stations in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. Of those, 8,000 sheep survived the journey. On March 26, 1883, two Scottish/Australian families, the MacDonalds and the McKenzies, began a huge cattle drive from Clifford's Creek near

Goulburn, New South Wales Goulburn ( ) is a regional city in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, approximately south-west of Sydney and north-east of Canberra. It was proclaimed as Australia's first inland city through letters patent by Queen Victor ...

to the Kimberley, where they established "Fossil Downs" station. The journey of over 6,000 km lasted more than three years and involved Charles ('Charlie') MacDonald (1851–1903) and William Neil ('Willie') MacDonald (1860–1910), sons of Donald MacDonald from Broadford on the Isle of Skye (who had sailed from Scotland in the 1830s). The family moved to Clifford's Creek, Laggan, and the brothers had become expert bushmen. The cattle drive was undertaken after Donald MacDonald heard glowing reports of the Kimberley from Scots/Australian explorer Alexander Forrest in 1879. The MacDonalds and the McKenzies formed a joint venture to obtain leases in the Kimberley and to stock them by overlanding the cattle. The brothers were joined by their cousins Alexander and Donald MacKenzie, Peter Thomson, James McGeorge and Jasper Pickles. They set out with 670 cattle, 32 bullocks yoked to two wagons and 86 horses. All foodstuffs and equipment for the long journey were carried in the wagons. Drought conditions delayed progress and most of the original party, apart from Charlie and Willie MacDonald, withdrew long before Cooper's Creek was reached. Stock losses were replaced, only to be reduced again by the continued drought. Despite a grueling journey through crocodile- and mosquito-infested territory in the top end with frequent Aboriginal attacks, the cattle eventually arrived at the junction of the Margaret and Fitzroy Rivers in July 1886 and "Fossil Downs" station was established. It is the longest cattle drive in history. The Tibbett brothers drove a flock of 30,000 ewes in the early 1890s from Wellshot Station to Roma in

, a distance of over , in search of grass for the stock. The sheep were all sheared in Roma and lambing started as relieving rains came to Wellshot. The flock was brought back with an additional 3,000 lambs. In 1900, a drover named Coleman departed from Clermont with 5,000 sheep; the country was drought-stricken and he had been instructed to keep the mob alive. Coleman wandered through south-western Queensland finding feed as they went. When he eventually returned he brought back 9,000 sheep, had sold over 5,000, and killed nearly 1,000 for "personal use". In 1904, 20,000 head of cattle were removed from Wave Hill Station and overlanded to Killarney Station, near

Narrabri Narrabri ( ) is a locality and seat of Narrabri Shire Local government in Australia, local government area in the North West Slopes, New South Wales, Australia on the Namoi River, northwest of Sydney. It sits on the junction of the Kamilaroi Hi ...

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, a straight-line distance of around . At the time, it was considered a "remarkable" feat of droving and took 18 months to complete. Another famous drove was by William Philips in 1906, who overlanded 1,260 bullocks from Wave Hill Station some to Burrendilla, near Charleville in just 32 weeks.

References

External links

Historic droving journey
��Video, September 2013, one of the largest Australian cattle drives in 100 years. 18,000 head, 1,500 kilometres. Whole mob is 80 kilometres long.
Cattle Drives
Documentary produced by Oregon Field Guide {{Authority control Transhumance