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Working on a Beef Cattle Station

TRANSCRIPTS

Contains transcripts to all of the video clips in the resource.

Working at a Beef Cattle Station - TRANSCRIPTS of VIDEO CLIPS WELL 2012

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CONTENTS

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2

MODULE 1: Working Safely at a Beef Cattle Station .................................................................................... 3

MODULE 2: Handling Cattle in the Yard ....................................................................................................... 5

MODULE 3: Muster & Move Cattle ............................................................................................................ 13

MODULE 4: Fencing .................................................................................................................................... 17

Introduction

The total duration of the twenty-two video clips is approximately 40 minutes.

You can use these Transcripts in the following ways:

To help you to read along with the talking in the videos;

To build your skills for listening to Australian people talking English;

To help to find answers for the Quizzes

To learn new words for communicating and reporting at work.

Vocabulary Exercise:

In the list at the end of these Transcripts, is a list of all the highlighted words. Look up and write down the meaning of the words in the list (in your own language if English is not your first language).

Add any other words that are new for you.

NOTE:

Most of the highlighted words are also in the Glossary tab, with lots more words and the meanings, at the top of the screen in each module.



MODULE 1: Working Safely at a Beef Cattle Station

Video Clip 1.1

Hind Legs

0:41 mins

Wayne: The other thing we can sort of show you a thing about is picking

up hind legs up. The main thing with picking hind legs up is…. specially

because this horse will kick a little bit because it’s a bit touchy… is to get

your hands in the right place and the reins. The main thing is to get the

hand on the hip. See how that horse is ready to kick? But if something

happens, she’s got the head pulled around and hand on the hip. If

something happens, she can pull the head and push hip at the same time

and the horse will get away from her. She might get a little kick, but

nothing major. But if she hasn’t got her hand there and that horse just

jumps forward and kicks, it’ll just kick her in the guts and it’ll flatten her.

Video Clip 1.2

Jumping the Fence

0:58 mins

Chris: Another safety issue is if a cow comes out of the mob and is chasing

you, and she’s pretty serious to do some damage to you. A lot of people get

hurt because they do a couple of things:

One is they’re not serious enough.. they don’t think the cow is serious

enough so they come here and they don’t have a proper attempt at getting

over the fence. So what they do is they come in here and they only come to

about here. The cow comes in and smacks them against the rail and this is

what does all the damage – not the cow, it’s the rails. Okay? So if you’ve got

to get up a fence, don’t muck around, come in and get right up the top and

get your legs out of the road like that. The cow can hit the fence but you’re

pretty safe and you can jump out of the road. So that’s where a lot of people

get hurt. They run and don’t get up the fence. They just think they’re safe

down there and get hurt.



Video Clip 1.3

Leading a Horse

1:21 mins

Wayne: What we’re going to demonstrate here is what can happen if you

don’t hold the horse properly leading him through a gate. If we can get

Shelby to lead him through the gate first… the wrong way….. Pbbbh!

See how that horse jumped? It could have jumped straight past and kicked

because of where she was holding the reins; it could have jumped straight

past her and kicked her fair in the guts.

And this is what happens if you do it the proper way – hold a horse up

short…. Pbbbh! See how the horse could come straight round and there’s no

hope of you getting kicked in the guts because she’s got hold of the reins in

the right place. I’ve seen a lot of people just dawdling through a gate and all

that happens is that dog could walk up behind that horse and frighten the

living daylight out of it. You know you could have the quietest horse in the

world, but it’ll jump past and if it gets a fright, it will kick out, you know. It

might only be kicking of the dog, but you’re there. That’s a fair bit of power

coming from one of them. People get ribs broken and if they get kicked

higher up, they get kicked in the face they get broken jaws and all sorts of

things, you know…

The right way is to have it up short, so that you can pull the horses head

around towards you and the wrong way is Like if you get a horse up here

short, something happens, you can just pull that horse’s head around. But if

it’s up there and you to pull… nothing happens. And if you do pull it, it’s up

there first, then it just goes wop!

Video Clip 1.4

Locking Yard Gates

1:02 mins

Chris: One of the main jobs you do in a cattle yard you do a hundred times a

day…...is close a gate. So, you’ve just got a basic gate here with a chain on it

and I’ll just show you the safe way to chain it. Don’t just bring the chain

around and just throw it over like that – and a lot of people do that. They just

think, yep… that’s going to be safe, but, as you can see, it’s got a lot of play in

it – the cow can get his head stuck in here and a cow will try to crawl out and

get jammed. Um, and you’ve got a lame animal and you’ve got some trouble.

So, the best thing to do with a chain is go under these two rails, around

again, keep it nice and tight, keep going around and under, then come over

the top. And that’s a safe way of doing it.



Video Clip 1.5

Mounting a Horse

0:38 mins

Wayne: The main thing with getting on is always have this rein a little bit

tighter than the other one. Then put your foot in the iron, and get this knee

in here so that you can push away on it, then go up with a straight leg and

straight on. That way, if that horse had jumped forward, with that rein a little

bit tight like that, if it jumps forward, it’s the same principle as everything

with horses – if something happens, you just pull that rein around and that

horse will go around there and you won’t get kicked or if a horse starts to

buck or something, you just pull it round and wait again and start to get back

on it.

MODULE 2: Handling Cattle in the Yard

Video Clip 2.1

Yard Preparation

and Maintenance

2:50 mins

Wayne: Before you put cattle in the yard, you should always come and

check the yard and make sure everything’s up to scratch like there’s no

protruding objects, or gates that are got broken hinges or things like that. So

what you do is you come into the yard, go for a walk right round the yard,

check everything like check your chains, make sure they’re welded on

properly, and there’re no cracks in the welding, and your hinges on all your

gates – make sure that the weld on the back is good so that if a cow hits it,

it’s not going to end up on top of you. So you just go for a walk – walk all

round your yard. Check your sliding gates to make sure they’re greased up.

See this one – it’s very tight so they need to put some oil along the top so

that it works good because if the cow goes to go in , then you’ve got to

block it, you’re not going to be able to block it and the cow hits it, it’ll bang it

back, slam it into you and you can get hurt. So just be very careful. Then you

just keep walking around and checking things. Then you see something like



this – this piece of wire sticking out like this. You know, if a cow comes up

and runs into that, then bang, straight into the eye, you know, so you’ve got

to either do it up properly and push it out, the best thing’s to get a pair of

pliers, cut it off and tuck it in. And check to see there’s no big rocks like,

you know, rocks like this. Someone could trip, like if a cow was chasing

them, or charging them (something like that) and they went to run away,

they could fall over that. So just walk in your yard and chuck all your rocks

out. Then other things like these sticks and that here – you, know they’re

very dangerous. Don’t try and make a big mess outside, just throw it outside

so people can pick it up later and take it away.

It’s a good thing to be able to, you know, if you’ve got a yard and it’s out in

the open spaces, to plant some trees – a little bit of breeze makes it a cooler

working area. That’s one thing kids have got to remember is that, um, if you

plant some trees, to go and water them and keep them going like this yard

here is a beautiful yard because it’s got trees everywhere - all out the back

yard here there’s trees there. The cows can stand in the cool. Some of them

have probably come 20ks before they get here - it’s a good place for them to

go back to the yard - give them an hour or so spell before you do anything

and then they’re all cooled off.

Another thing that’s fairly helpful is sprinklers. And it makes the ground no

dust and the cattle don’t get a gut full of dust and get half crook specially

when a lot of these yards these days have got hay in them and the hay when

it’s dry is very dusty and it’s not good for....you see cattle running round

with snotty noses and it’s because they haven’t no water. Water as far as

I’m concerned is one of the main things, if it’s at all possible, to have in yards

it gets rid of the dust and it keeps the working area cool. As I say, if anything

that helpful to keep the cattle cool, it keeps people cool and saves

accidents.

Video Clip 2.2

Cleaning Water Troughs

Don: Another important part of station maintenance is the cleanliness of the

troughs. The trough is for watering stock um, easy access to the side of it.

And the cattle in this paddock will know that this’s a reliable source of water



1:38 mins

here and that’s why we have to maintain this trough and keep it clean and

keep it in good condition. As you can see this trough‘s full of gum leaves and

various other matter – bird feathers and sometimes you may have a dead

bird in there and cows like to drink clean water. So we always carry a trough

broom, unscrew the bung at the end of the trough, lock the float off and

when the water goes down a bit, we can give the trough a good scrub.

The water’s delivered from that tank through a pipeline under the ground.

Another important part if you see a wet patch over there somewhere there’s

possibly a hole somewhere on the line.

We’ll check this float valve in a minute once we let it go and make sure it’s

running freely and shutting off and that’ll flush out clean.

There the obvious thing to look for is good flow here at the float valve. If

that was just trickling out, you’ve got a problem: either your tank’s empty or

there’s a blockage in your line to your trough.

And we try and keep that part of the trough covered with a cage or a door so

the stock can’t get in and damage that.

Video Clip 2.3

Marking Cattle

1:44 mins

Danny: Here you can see we’ve got all our equipment here for doing the

head. These are called tags – identification tags for the station. The

hormonal growth promotant we put in all the steers. That’s your applicator

for your tags. This is a NLIS tag which is an electronic tag which nowadays

everything has to have one when it goes off the property. You load it up like

that – ready to go. Hygiene’s a big thing. You want to keep everything clean

so no infections. This is your earmarking pliers. This is what every property

has an earmark. And this is what we use. This is our earmark. And this is your

mark for your hormonal growth promotant so that you know that that

animal’s has had HGP put in their ear. By law you have to use it. You have to

put it in. We’ll go through the head - what happens with the male calf – they

get a few extra things compared to a female. Cassie will earmark it. This is a

bull calf and Dan will cut it and turn it into a steer. And Cassie gives them a

hormonal growth promotant which helps them gain weight. She puts it in



the ear nice and gently. It goes just under the skin. Pushes the thing, that’s it

and makes sure it stays in the ear. Then next they get an electronic tag.

That’s for identification for when we sell them. They have to have one. And

then she puts the HGP earmark in their ear which you have to do. Every time

you put a HGP in you have to put that earmark in. Then make sure it’s out –

the hole – then people know it’s had a HGP. And the job’s done.

Video Clip 2.4

Branding Cattle

1:44 mins

Danny: Dan’s pushing a calf up – a heifer calf. She’s been taken off her

mother so we can brand it for identification. They catch it, roll the calf

over....in the branding position. Dan’s got hold of it. Nice neat brands. And

the reason we brand them is for identification so that other people know

that they’re our cattle. Every property has an individual brand and people

know that animal belongs to that property and we also number brand for

age when they were born and how old the actual animal is. So especially the

heifers, for later one when the cows get to a certain age, we spay them and

cull them on age and that’s the reason you brand. If a calf in the lead, Cassie

will push it up. It’s very important you catch them properly because if you

miss them you’ve got to go and catch them by hand.

You see the brand there, nice and neat? Dan’s done another slick job there.

It’s all nice and square and neat and you can read it. That’s the big thing – to

be able to read it. Sometimes if you smudge it, like do it too fast, the calf

moves or something, it’ll smudge and you can’t identify it properly.

Safety-wise, keep an eye on your fire. Look that’s hot. So always watch out

for that. Sometimes you’ve got to be careful calves will come out of the

cradle the wrong way, and they’ll run back and they’ll knock the branding

fire over and just simple little things you’ve got to watch out for – getting

kicked. These little calves they look cute and everything, but by Jesus they

can kick! And you can get your fingers sometimes jammed with the cradle.

The calf when you’re earmarking it will throw it’s head around and you’ll

jam your fingers. So you just got to be careful and just take your time. As you

get more experienced, you’ll get better at it. That’s the big thing. It’s not a

race. We teach everyone how to do it and you just take … you know,



everyone starts off slow, everyone got to start somewhere and we all did.

So you just start off slow and steady and you’ll get better and better at it.

But the big thing is neatness as well. Earmark and brands have to be neat so

they’re easily identifiable. Everyone’s… it’s just presentation is a big thing.

Video Clip 2.5

Drafting Cattle

1:29 mins

Wayne: Drafting means dividing cattle into different lines. Well like when

you muster cattle, everything comes in and they’re all different types of

cattle like there’s the big cows, the little calves, the weaners, bulls, steers

and when they bring them into the yard, they’ve got to shift them into

different types.

The smaller ones – that’s a calf – they draft them off and goes into the calf

pen to be branded and castrated where the little fellows are only probably

anywhere from a week or two months old or three months old. They’re the

younger ones and stay with their mothers.

The weaner ones are a little bit bigger, like they’re probably anywhere from

3 to 6 months old. They’re the ones coming off their mothers. They’re big

enough and ugly enough to look after themselves so they leave their

mothers and become weaners. They’ll be trucked up….put on the truck later

and be taken back to the station.

These are cows that have calves. They’re all the bush cattle. Some of these

cows will be old cows and Jamie, when they get up the race a bit, he will spay

them so that they get fat so he can get some resale value for them.

Normally these big fat ones – they’ll preg test them and if they’re not in calf,

they will sell them. It’s no good having a cow that doesn’t have a calf every

year, at least every second year.

Like now, that’s a bush cow. She’ll come up the race here. I’d say Jamie will

more than likely spay her because she very old and skinny. By the time she

comes back next year, she’ll be big and fat and he’ll sell her as a ‘fat cow’.

Video Clip 2.6

Closing Yard Gates

Wayne: I try to tell everybody – if you’ve got a gate open, the cattle have

gone through, like they’d be coming down there and they go through, and

you push the gate shut, the best thing is to try and stand to the side of the



1:16 mins

gate as much as possible, run in, shut your gate and what people do – I see a

lot of people do nowadays is they stand down and they put their foot on the

gate. Then they go for the chain, but, you know, it’s alright if the beast is only

a hundred kilos, you might hold it with your foot, but if that’s a four or five

hundred kilo bull, he comes charging back and hits that gate. You’re standing

here, the gate hits you – bang! – over the top, you’re on the ground. The bull

jumps over the top of you as well as the gate! And you will get hurt bad,

really bad. I’ve seen people – broken ribs, broken jaws, tops taken off their

heads, all sorts of things. It’s very dangerous. So the best way to do this – put

your cattle in, push the gate shut, step to the side as quick as possible, grab

the chain, put it on. And that way, if something hits the gate, the only thing

that will get hit is, as it goes past, it might hit your arm. But an arm’s a lot

easier to heal than your ribs or your head!

Video Clip 2.7

Pressure Points

xx mins

Chris: So what I want to do is just teach you the basics of where the pressure

points are in the beast and how to get them to move, how to get them to

stop and how to get them to turn. So what I’ll do with this little fellow –

you’ll see just in front of his back leg, his hip bone, if you put your pressure

back around his hind end, he’ll move forward.

If you want him to keep going straight, you’ll move forward with him and if

you want him to stop, you just go up towards his shoulder in front. That’s put

pressure in front like a set of brakes and it tells him to stop. So, what I’ll do is

walk in here to his hips and he’ll start walking forward. …… and I’ll just walk

along with him. If I want him to keep going forward, I just go back behind his

hips, put a bit of pressure in here. Just keep applying the pressure until he

moves and then he’ll walk off and then I’ll just walk with him. He stops; I’ll

put more pressure on and then walk him off.

If I want him to stop, I just come up in front of his shoulder and he’s turned

back. He’s felt that. So if I want him to stop, I just come up in front of him on

his shoulder….. and he stops.

Video Clip 2.8

Low Stress Handling

Jamie: The principles of low stress stock handling is just .. is basically just

walking cattle very quietly in a steady manner and sort of understanding the

psychology of the animal.



3:42 mins

Cattle have flight zones, so if you’re inside an animal’s flight zone, obviously

they fly away from you. And if you’re outside their flight zone, they’ll sort of

look at you and they invite you into their flight zone. And so you come in, but

you never, never actually approach them straight on. You should always

come in that manner because we’re predators. Humans are predators like

cats and lions. We’ve got our eyes in the front of our faces like a cat or a lion.

Whereas these are flight animals – their eyes are on the side of their head.

So if we approach them in a natural...instinctively, we approach as a predator

and these guys read that straight away – that we’re approaching as a

predator. So that just sends them (crazy). So if you can go against your

instinct, and approach them like that………. A lot of people might see you

doing that and think there’s something wrong with you (that you’re mad) I

might just walk in there and push them out.

So basically, you just …. You want these little guys to go up …

Most people would walk up behind them and didn’t know what they were

doing and just go “yah!” hoping they’d all go up on the truck, but the best

way to do that is to just come in and walk up and down. See how this beast is

looking at me? It’s sort of inviting me into its flight zone and I’ll just work up

and down and you get a leader.

See how these animals they want to go up there. I’m not forcing them to go

up there. That’s the difference between …. Because if you put pressure on a

beast to move off your pressure, as soon as that beast moves off your

pressure you should …. You’ve got to take the pressure away as a reward to

the animal. That’s one of the important principles of low stress. So if I put a

lot of pressure on you, and you move back, and I take that pressure off, well

you’ll feel comfortable about that then. But if I hold that pressure there all

the time, and you’ve got nowhere to go, then you’re either going to get

angry and charge me, or maybe wack me or …. Animals are the same. If you

put pressure on them they just go (crazy) So if you want an animal to move

off your pressure, put the pressure on, when it goes off, you take it away. So

I can put pressure on these guys – get them moving and then take it off. As



soon as they go off me….. A lot of people will keep following them. If I keep

putting pressure on them, as soon as you do that….. they start blowing back

behind you. Then you know they jam up and they get stressed. If you can just

walk up behind them, as soon as they move off your pressure, take it away –

you see? And go back in again…. I can take the pressure off that little guy and

he just turns around. In years gone by we’d go in with a piece of poly pipe

each, or maybe a tree, a branch off a tree and sort of almost go to war with

the cattle. But with low stress, you know, your whole mind set changes and

you actually go in there in a relaxed frame of mind. You’re working with the

animals in a cooperative manner so instead of going in there and fighting

them, you’re actually going in there and working with them. We haven’t had

a worker’s compensation claim in four years and we used to have a lot of

comp claims before we started doing low stress.



MODULE 3: Muster & Move Cattle

Video Clip 3.1

Vehicle Checks

4:42 mins

Don: Right, this is a Toyota Landcruiser, primarily a work vehicle on a

station or a farm. We’ll just do a run through check this morning.

Most vehicles of this description have a bonnet pull with a car and a little

bonnet on it (picture). Pretty standard for most vehicles. I’ll go round the

front and pop the bonnet up. There’s a release catch – safety catch. Prop

that under your bonnet.

And this is called your engine compartment. There’s various things. Quite

often we check the fan belt, air conditioning belt, radiator fluid levels can be

checked visually through the overflow glass here. It’s very important not to

take that cap off when the vehicle’s hot because you’ll throw hot, steamy

water all over yourself. This is best done first thing in the morning before

you start the vehicle.

We have a dipstick here. Usually as in this case we have either red or yellow.

This one’s yellow. You pull the dipstick out and have a quick visual check.

That’s showing it’s full and the proper practice is to actually wipe it with a

rag (which my shirt will suffice for that today). And it’s usually very

important to check it again because that mightn’t show a true level when

you first pull it out. So you place it in and leave it for a few seconds and then

pull it out again. And it’s still showing the same reading so it’s on the FULL

level.

It’s always fairly important on a cattle station to check your battery

condition. Make sure it’s tight. They have a habit here of rattling loose

because some of our roads become rough towards the end of the year.



Check for corrosion around your terminals. These are very clean.

That’s just power steering fluid very similar to your dipstick again. A little

indicator there – actually a little bit low.

These are your brake fluid levels and your clutch. And that little ledge there

would say high so this is full of clutch fluid. And there’s your brake fluid

level. They have a HIGH and a LOW. That’s actually slightly low.

Just have a visual check of your tyres. These are free-wheeling hubs which is

very important on a 4-wheel drive. They have a FREE position and a LOCK.

This one’s actually in LOCK. For travelling on the highway, you’d have that in

FREE and that enables your front wheel to turn independently to the rest of

the car. A lot of people get into trouble if they get into a bog, they’ve got

free-wheeling hub and if they put it in 4-wheel drive in the car, but because

the hubs aren’t in, the vehicle will not turn the front wheels. So they’re

simply done by just turning that round to LOCK. And it’s quite clear there –

LOCK and FREE.

This vehicle’s set up with a water tank. Up here water’s very important to

you. Always before you leave, make sure you have your water bottle on the

back. If you forgot your water bottle, you would drink out of that and quite

easily survive.

I have a trough broom fitted under there which is held in by a strap. At the

front here we have a shovel – another very important piece of equipment in

a station or a farm vehicle as we quite often have to dig a hole or dig

yourself out of a bog. It’s not much fun digging with your hands so it’s good

to always make sure the vehicle has a shovel.

All the vehicles should have a chain. Very handy for pulling another vehicle

out of a bog, or removal of dead animals if you find a dead animal stuck in a

trough or on the side of the road and you want to move it, you can tow that

away with a chain.

Obviously yeah, just a visual check of your lights if you have two people

with you. You can always check your park lights yourself especially if you’re



going into town. You might be unaware that your light globe’s blown.

Tyres….obviously if your tyre looks a bit flat you’d check that for air

pressure, but that’s a visual thing as well. You’d look at that tyre and if it was

lying flat you’d check it or change it. Now the other very important thing is

your spare tyre. You should never go anywhere without a spare tyre. In this

vehicle …or be aware of where the spare tyre is. In this vehicle it’s hidden up

under the back here. You pull these two handles and the spare tyre comes

out. You can actually carry two spare tyres in there and the other good thing

is to once in a while check that they’re actually inflated. There’s nothing like

getting a flat tyre when you’re out the back of the station and your spare’s

flat as well.

It’s more a personal thing, but it is a law requirement that you do not have

stuff inside the vehicle on the dash. It’s a classic – people put all sorts of

stuff: coke cans, spurs, spanners…. It’s actually against the law to carry stuff

on your dash these days. If you hit a decent bump, or in the event of a

rollover, you don’t want all these missiles in the cab sailing around.

Video Clip 3.2

Riding Positions

0:58 mins

Wayne: There’s no real way of holding a mob of cattle. You’re trying to sort

of keep them in a square… probably not a square…. The front’s a little bit

narrower than the back, you know. So it’s like a funnel – the back is bigger.

The lead is always narrower and it’s easier to control if you haven’t got a big

area to cover.

With your horsemen, your main man is your Lead up here in the lead and

then you’ve got your point. Lead point here, another one on this side.

Usually Wing men in the middle. Then you’ve got point men here again and

this is the Tail point. And then you’ve got your men on the Tail.

You can just about guarantee the head stockman will either be in the lead or

on the tail and he will give you your positions. You are actually given your

positions more or less every day, you know. As a kid gets better and

improves, he will be shifted into another position.

When you’re given a position, it doesn’t matter if a cow breaks out of the



mob, and you chase it round and it comes back in the tail, make sure that

you return to the position that you left. And when you’re returning, ride on

the outside, not on the inside. Please don’t ride in front of the other men.

Go round the men. You know, you’ve only got to go ride past the other

horses, it not going to make any difference to the distance.

Video Clip 3.3

Mothering Up

0:48 mins

Wayne: The point of mothering up is so that no calves die. Because if they

don’t get their mother and don’t get milk, they are going to die.

When you take your cattle away, you take them to where you’re going to let

them go and you pull all the cattle up, put them in a mob, blocked up. Let

them spread out a little bit and everybody just stands around on their horses

and holds them there. The cows will be bellowing looking for their calves.

Some calves are up the front and some calves in the yard down the back so

they don’t see their mothers. Once you’ve been with cattle a little while,

you’ll understand … you’ll see the cows and calves with their mother. Put

time in it. Some people will block them up for five minutes and let them go.

You know, that’s not what’s expected. An hour to two hours I always say – if

you’re going to do it properly.

Video Clip 3.4

Counting Cattle

0:36 mins

Wayne: Counting cattle is very important because you need to know how

many head of cattle are in every paddock – how many are branded, how

many are selling, how many you’re spaying, how many you got to sell next

year, so that you can do your budget. You know it all comes down to the

counting. It doesn’t matter where you are – if you let cattle out of the yard,

count them, even if the boss doesn’t ask you to. Just count them and it

becomes a habit even if they’re going out of the gate and you’re sitting on

the rail. Count them. If you’ve got a notebook, write it down.

That’s one thing I recommend with everything on stations, no matter where

you go or what you’re doing – carry a notebook.



MODULE 4: Fencing

Video Clip 4.1

Parts of a Fence

2:06 mins

Wayne: This is the argument we have with Queenslanders and South

Australians – that’s called a dropper in my part of the world – South

Australians call it a picket - I call it a dropper and the black one is a picket.

They call it a dropper. So, we won’t have this argument – that’s a picket and

that’s a dropper.

Righto, this is just a bit more to do with fencing. This is what they call an end

assembly. Sometimes they have three rails, sometimes they only have two,

but this one’s only got two. This is the post. They actually cement it into the

ground and the rails are welded between each post.

In this country, the ground gets very, very wet , this black soil, and when it

gets wet, it starts to swell and if you only put a single post like that in, then

put the gate on it, when you come back after the wet, what would have

happened? This post with the little bit of weight of the wire on the end of it,

pulling on it, and the ground sucking in like that it’d just go in the ground

would just go pop and it’d fly right out of the ground. When you come back

it’ll be sticking out up here somewhere or not even in the ground. Anyway it

may be lying on the ground here.

The ground is so dry now it’s opened up and you can see the cracks in the

ground but it opens up and when it gets wet it just comes back again and

squeezes the cement and then the cement gets squeezed like that and they

just pops it out of the ground and then the post’s gone.

And to stop it from popping, we use these things here called stays they

actually go down on an angle and that pushes it back …the pressures if they



start to pull, the pressure goes on this and it stops them from coming out of

the ground. These posts would be about ah, I don’t know, about three foot

in the ground. If you do them shorter than that, they will pop out for sure.

And you need them strong to keep your gates level.

Video Clip 4.2

Types of wire

1:36 mins

Wayne: Up in this part of the cattle country, this is the main wire that is used

for fencing. It’s barbed wire. There are two types of barbed wire. This is

heavy, but it’s soft. You can move it around and do it, but the other barb is a

light barb. It’s only half the size of that, but it’s high tensile and the only

thing with high tensile in this country is the fires. If you get a fire, and the

wire’s tight, it hits the high tensile, it snaps the wire. So, the best wire is

actually this wire. It gets a bit soft and it’ll loosen with a fire, it don’t break.

With the high tensile stuff, it breaks all the time.

And the only other wire that is used up here is plain wire. It’s usually ten

gauge. Ten gauge is a good size wire. And like the six gauge is a big wire

really eight gauge is a bit smaller, ten gauge is smaller still and twelve gauge

– twelve gauge is what they usually use for ties. This is a ten gauge. Most

people use twelve gauge for wire because it’s easy to work, but with the

twelve gauge sometimes when the cattle hit it, it will unwrap. This stuff

doesn’t. It’s a little bit stronger. This is the high tensile stuff. See how skinny

it is compared to the other wire we were looking at. It’s real little thin stuff.

If it gets fire on it, it will just snap, but it’s cheap and the reason people like

to use it with the other wire, the bigger wire, you can only get 400 metres on

a roll. This one here, you can get 500 metres on. And it’s a lot easier – you

can get a lot more on the trailer, you can carry it a lot further and it’s a lot

lighter and it’s easier to work with.

Video Clip 4.3

Tools & Materials for

Fencing

1:22 mins

Wayne: Righto, this is just the yarning about all the tools that we use for

fencing. This is a pair of Hay strainers – they’re for straining wire for wire

breaks. There…..this one……. And the chain that’s at the other end. One

hooks on either end of the wire and you bring them up to strain a wire.

That’s a pair of pliers – that’s for cutting wire and twisting wire and all sorts



of things – you use it for a lot of things.

The main thing for putting fences up is a steel picket. And the other thing for

driving the pickets in….. is this – it’s called a ‘dolly’. It goes on the picket like

this …….and you use that to…… to drive the picket in. Most of these things

are designed to the right height. When that hits the ground, it’s the height of

the picket.

These are the little bits of wire that you put through the picket, like that. Put

it on there and then you wrap this round the wire like that. Always leave the

tie hanging down so that the cattle can’t get hit with it. The same thing on

the other side – as long as this is a full piece of wire – this is just a bit of an

exhibition. That’s how you tie a tie on.

Video Clip 4.4

Knots

1:57 mins

Wayne: And another thing I can probably show you is how to do a figure

eight. I’ve just got it rigged up here on a motor car. This is something that

everyone needs to know because it’s a way of tying wire without wasting

wire. You just turn the wire round like that. Then you go through the wire,

under the wire, twist it around and bring it back through like that. Then just

pull it. Then you’ve got a figure of eight. That’s how you tie most wire up on

fences….. if it’s plain wire. You can use it on barb wire, but it’s very fiddly

because you’ve got to put the claws through, you know.

If you can’t do a figure eight, this is the way they tie it: you grab the wire

here, you spin it round…. Like that, put your pliers on the end of it and you

just do this up ….. like that. And always turn the wire back so no one gets

hurt or cattle don’t run into it and rip their guts out or something. When you

do the other end, you put the wire through again – push him through the

eye like that, round there to a certain amount that he thinks is good enough

you can turn easily with your finger. Then bend it, bring it round, twist it

right across. Then get your pliers again and hook onto there so that it

doesn’t spin. Your pliers hold it stop from spin then just ……go like that with

your thumb and hand. When you’ve finished, twist the wire back.

That’s the way 90% of people do knots. I’m not a great lover of that knot – I



like the figure eight. With barb wire it won’t slip because the prongs on the

barb wire will hold, but with this, if something gives this a real good thing –

you can feel it – see that one up there – if I’ve only put a couple of laps on it ,

it will slowly come undone – see?

Video Clip 4.5

Straining a fence

2:01 mins

Wayne: Yeah, well with straining wire, you got a set of strainers (there’s all

different makes) but they’re all principally the same thing, so….. go and get

both wires from both ends and bring them together.

Then you put your strainers on. You put your actual working mechanism –

the piece that actually does the straining, on one end. You put your strainers

on with about a foot long and then you put your chain on the other end. And

you put the chain down a fair way so that the wire will pull together. And

don’t over strain wire. That’s probably the main thing… like, if you look up

the fence and you know the wire’s a little bit old and raggedy, don’t go

putting 500 pounds on it, you know. Just pull it up and when you see all the

wire’s nice and firm, stop. And then pull it together. Then the wire goes past

the one you’ve got standing out and you wrap it round and it’s tight. And

with plain wire, usually on one end you put a figure of eight. Go past the

strainers and do it up and just wind it up. You can use figure eight on barb

wire, but I don’t recommend it for kids because they will get ripped to

pieces, you know.

And with fencing, as far as I’m concerned, you should probably have two

people. With safety with strainers, it’s very, very important that you that

make sure the area is clear. Some of that wire is so old and rusty. It can

break, so always stand back a little bit so that, if it breaks, the strainers can

go flying. Have it clear so you can get that little bit away, you know. Every

little bit away so a little bit’s so it’s not going to hit you.

If you happen to be straining the top wire, and you’re a little short fella, it

could come past and wack you on the jaw, you know. Most times it’ll be in

the ribs or the chest and it’ll hurt, but if it hits you in the jaw, I’ve seen

people knocked out for up to two hours just lying there.



Another thing with fencing is it’s probably a good idea to wear protective

glasses.

And for people who’ve been working all their life, they don’t like gloves

because they get in the road, but unless you’ve been working six months or

something, I’d wear gloves.

Glossary

Vocabulary exercise:

See if you know each of the words below. If not, look up and write down the meaning in your

own words or language. This will help you to understand and use the words correctly when you

write reports.

You can also add more of your own words that you want to remember.

Word Meaning

20ks 20 kilometres

beast animal

bellowing

blockage

buck

bulls

bung plug

calves

charge run towards

compensation

cooperative manner working together well

damage break

dawdling

demonstrate

drafting dividing cattle into different lines



flight animals

flight zone

flush wash out

funnel

get half crook

guts

hind

hip

HGP Hormonal Growth Promotant

instinct

iron stirrup

issue

jam/jammed

lame

maintain/maintenance

major

manner way

matter substance

mind set way of thinking

mob

mothering up

NLIS National Livestock Identification System

paddock

pen

predator

preg test

pressure



primarily mainly

principle rule

protruding Sticking out

race

reins

reliable

skinny thin

snotty nose

spay

spell a short period of time

sprinkler

steers

stress

tank

trough

valve

wack hit

weaners

weld/welding

Words (Vehicle) Meaning

battery

bog

brake fluid

clutch

corrosion

dash



dipstick

free-wheeling hubs

light globe’s

overflow glass

power steering fluid

shovel

terminals

tyre

Words (Fencing) Meaning

assembly

barbed wire

dolly’

dropper

gauge

high tensile

picket

pliers

post

strain a wire

strainers

tie



Word Meaning

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