Lorraine-Lee Tyerman, Sheep Muster (DOCO 2025)

When there are thousands of sheep to muster for market, it can mean days of hot dusty work in the desert country of outback NSW. The sheep kick up a lot of dust as we walk approximately two thousand sheep at a time over several kilometres to the yards. It takes a constant effort to keep the sheep walking along the fence line as they have a habit of going bush, this is where my partner Geoff sets off for the chase to bring them back to the fenceline. Once we get them into the yard, Geoff has to use all his bike riding skills to coerce the sheep into the pens. This takes a lot of back-and-forth on the bike as sheep do not like going through gates. Once the sheep are in the pen, they need to be moved along through a chain of pens ready for loading onto the trucks. Pushing up the sheep in this manner is done on foot, in a cloud of dust. We have the help of our trained Kelpie who helps to push the sheep up through a series of gates and on to the trucks. Once the B-Double truck is loaded with around 720 sheep it is time for a quick smoko before we head out to bring in the next lot of sheep for another truck load.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.