STOCKMAN PROFILE
Steven Weatherly
Article by Lauren Vest
S
teven Weatherly was born on a dairy farm at Newry, near Maffra in Victoria. He had working dogs from around seven years old and living in the foothills of the high country, he remembers annoying all the old mountain stockmen around the area to teach him dog and stockmanship skills. For a kid with a keen interest in stockmanship, he was extremely fortunate to have so many good stockmen around to learn from. Once he was old enough, he was employed as a drover for Gilbertson’s abattoir in Melbourne, working with all the old Newmarket drovers. He stayed there for ten years, learning a lot. He then moved into stock contracting, followed by a stint managing a composite ewe farm at Rosedale, then a steep and rough property at Mount Eccles and a property at Mortlake. He is currently the livestock manager for Andrew Sheridan, looking after properties at Wyang, Bengworden and Wuk Wuk in the Gippsland area. They run sheep and cattle, shearing around 18,000 sheep last year and running a combination of superfine Merinos, First Cross ewes, and Angus cattle. Steven says they are good people to work for, and he even met his partner Kate through the job – she started out as their wool classer and now has a full-time position there as well. The team is rounded out by the third worker, Ben, who is just starting out in working dogs. Steven is really enjoying helping him get started. A good stockman called Jim Jorgeson gave Steve his first working dog, a red merle Koolie bitch. He did not know what he had at the time – she did everything he ever asked of her, working sheep, cattle, dairy cows and cows and calves. He was also lucky enough when starting out to purchase a
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Kelpie dog off John Gedye, 30 odd years ago at Lardner Park – Scoriochre George. George is the best mustering dog he has ever had. John sent him another Scoriochre bitch to join to George, and Steven still has that same line of dogs today, including two sons of George. They are big casting, natural mustering dogs. They will do a job in the yards but really excel out in the paddock. Steven does not mind what breed a dog is – if it is a good dog, it’s a good dog. He has run Kelpies, Border Collies and Koolies, as well as crossbred dogs. They just purchased their first Huntaway from Pip Flower in Tasmania, and so far, they are impressed with her as a yard dog. He currently has three collies, one of which is a good cattle dog, and one they purchased from Sarah Lee for Kate to work. He likes a natural dog – if the dog is meant for paddock work, it must be a natural casting and mustering dog. If it is a yard dog, it must be free backing and barking, wanting to do it, not needing to be pushed or over commanded. They must bark easily – he doesn’t want to wave his hands around to make them bark. Having natural dogs makes it easy – you just put a handle on them and away you go. He likes dogs that are free moving and do not have too much eye or the wrong sort of eye. All the natural casting dogs he has had do not show much eye. The Scoriochre dogs see their sheep and just keep on kicking out and going. At Mt Eccles Steven did nearly all the stockwork from horseback as the country was too steep and rough to get vehicles in. You often hear people say that working from horseback used to make better dogs, but Steven does not agree. He says you
