mustering Bulls In New Zealand

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] well it all started about oh i don't know 14 months ago i suppose a friend of mine worked for rob buchanan who won lotto four million dollars you know so he bought two or three farms and my friend worked on one of them anyway and rob worked the farm at whangapay anyway old trevor says oh his boss was having trouble getting his cattle out and we said well we do we do a bit of this we have some trained cattle for the job so anyway we went out the thunder pay met rob buchan he took us up on the hill and we drove around right through his whole property which took about an hour and a half i suppose and we saw 300 here to cattle and i just couldn't believe it he i said these aren't all while he's just they're all wild anyway and he says can you do it because me and my friend john bolton and we've worked together for some time so he says yeah we'll have a go at it and he says but i've got some mustards here now he says they're only getting out one or two bulls a day maybe and it's a real hit and miss you know job i said well we've got a a different system we've got our quiet coaches which is like these bullocks you know they train cattle they come when i say just like there's like horses i think they'll come here and eat your lunch with you and and we call them they come you can turn them around you get them in a tight patch you turn them around and so how we do it is the dogs find the wild cattle bail them up then we bring the coaches down to them the quiet cattle and we use pushing dogs which are healing dogs a lot of uh old mustards use heading dogs which turn the bees and bring it out we use healing dogs which push the beast out the direction of the beast is is by our coaches which are leading them now quiet cattle leave the lead the wild cattle out and we just lead them down to a safer area so we can drive them and uh because we've got a bit of direction on our cattle if we want them to come to the left a bit we can sort of steer them a bit and the wild and cattle will follow another another beast so providing our cattle are out in front the wild cattle will bunch up behind them so that's that's our plan but of course no fences no fences to work to at all we've got 5 000 acres of steep country and no fences well you know it's like trying to round up white bait that's so you know rob says to me okay we'll give you a start so you know a week goes by and we turn up there and uh we're out on the job he said well i'll just rush back to the house he says and i'll order a trucking trailer and i said hey i said don't you order a truck and trail on our part i said we've got to get them to the yard yet we're talking about you know about eight mile of travel through tea tree and rocks and stuff so he said well i'll hold off i said yeah you better hold off alright so we were there for four days and we got one beast two two cattle run different ways and you've got to get you've got to get the plan for a while you just can't go in there and start tomorrow and say we're going to bring them out you've got to go in there and have a look at the country and see which way they run and you know it's a lot of character type of stuff so so we instead of going that way we went this way with the cattle and then we started getting them we started getting tens and you know fives and balls and that's all you can take you can't take more than eight you know it'd be great to see you know if you start off with you see 30 wild cattle down there be great to go down and just grab the 30 cattle but you can't you've got to just get let the rest go and grab eight because eight we can control and uh because they break out at eight different times well if you haven't got that many dogs you've lost it and i had a small spell in hospital last november so christopher and all his wisdom decided to take me out to fungal pain for a few days rest so he took me out there and we went over the right over the back to this isolated little batch out there and um craig's land cruiser yeah craig craig oh yeah craig is uh he's rob buchanan's son he's now managing the farm and craig deposited just christopher and myself and sixteen dogs and i thought ah yes and sure enough crackadorn christopher was off out chasing balls and one day he had the balls running around the bench it these great big horns crashing into the side of the batch and i'm supposed that was part of my recuperation uh we've the farm is divided in half with one fence because when we first you know like i said before no fences but they're fencing flat out now and it's a great credit to young craig he's who is a queen street boy and i mean eight months ago he was in queen street you know i mean there he is out running a farm that's got bloody wild bulls no fences you know he's doing well the place is cut in half there's a gorgeous and the hammers them so the gorgeon's got some bluffs right around the edge 40 foot bluffs so what the beast do they roar down there and they stop you know three feet from this bluff because they know the bluffs there but the dogs don't and the dogs are trying to head the beast that's where heading dogs become dangerous again um and we've got two or three heading dogs and they're trying to head the beast and they just they're looking back at the beast the beasts and they're looking back they're trying to hit it and they're they're not looking that way where the beast's going they're watching the beast and they just launched themselves straight over 40 feet smash onto the rocks well we lost dice that they broke all the legs and you know she was my 10 year old dog well you know it's a bit sad really is you know now we don't have we don't have those problems now because we keep up high and um we've lost two horses already a one sort of actually the bull didn't we've had we've had a few injuries from the balls from the horses but they're only sort of minor but we've lost one died of a heart attack and one died of splitting his uh his groin through trying to jump out of the road of a bull but you know they they um most of the horses can handle but you do get injuries because it's a tough job you know you know the dogs they're they're they're not normal cow dogs you know they're tough dogs but they've got to be under control you've got to put them in and pull them out i mean and that's all got to be done with control with words and that's that's why i use that with that whip that cracking of the whip is a signal for those dogs to come off um it's nothing nothing else it's only a sound because when they're going 90 miles down the hill after a bull and they're all hyped up and heaps are barking you know the one in front of them is barking one of the back's barking and so they can't hear you talking so because i'm usually we're usually 500 yards away and the seas booming and so the whoop that pulls them off but you've got to have control on your dogs well to go out there with five like an average uh farmer or a master has has three to four working dogs right and that you can muster like at home here i use two dogs to muster 200 head of cattle i mean it's all i need these cows just turn and come and we have the odd little fight and two dogs can sort it out but out there you need ten dogs to turn one bull and because four dogs you just waste your time you might as well stay at home i mean the bull once you give the bull one win he knows and then the next time you're going to need six dogs next time seven dogs and he gets he gets better and he gets wiser and and he gets more arrogant and he beats you every time so you go we go out there you know i've got four 14 dogs and we've got you know 10 sort of cow dogs like directional and then we've got three sort of heavies that we that we just have for for the bulls so they got to go in and bite the ball or break them out of the teacher because the bulls hide in the teaching and i mean the teachers only hire hires a man and you can't see under there and you don't know what the hell's in there the dogs are battling around the teacher is shaking and you think now what the hell's in there no you don't always got horns or what and because you know there's 10 or 14 dogs barking in there you know it's big but you don't know if you've got horns or what and so you've got to duck down under the teeth and you sort of get down there next time the bull's coming and well the teacher's all bent over from the coast and you can't climb up and it's only that round and the ball can smash it down but you can't you know you're trying to run away and ah there's bloody balls coming and so you're really relying the dogs i mean you've got to know your dog's barking to where which thought where which dog is so it's sort of like working in the dark in there and you've got to have yeah you've got to have confidence in your dog there's some of those bulls out there that are real mean mothers you know they can be 50 yards away and you yell at them and he'll just turn and come and they come stalking they just they just want to eat you well actually the the last trip we had was it was a real interesting one because um we hear this bull bellowing up on the ridge about oh i know mile and a half away he's seen us coming from about a mile away or smelt us and he's hiding right and it's above a big quite a big steep area some more bluffs and uh so we put the dogs on anyway and by this time the rain's starting to come down the bull breaks around the side and so we try and get above the above there's a bit of a track heading above the bluff to try and get the dogs off before they hit the bluff cuz it up when they hit the buff dogs and beast over the side so anyway he hits this track and he's heading towards the sea because he knows he's been there you know this ball would have been oh kenya bull uh he knows that he's been down to the coast a lot because he eats the kelp that all those wild cattle have to eat the kelp and eat the kelp and the tea tree and that's part of their diet and you know so the sea is just like their home and so and they know if they get they get phased they just roar down to the sea swim out into the sea and hang out there maybe go to australia i don't i haven't seen any over there at the moment but anyway so they show me out there and we just leave them because it's it's a it's just a few dial exercises you know well yeah this ball hits the beach there and he bails up on the sand there for a bit and the dogs are having a go at him and then he sort of goes out the rocks a bit heading towards the water which he knows it's a safe place and there's choppa she's the big big orange dog and she just she has a garden she gets thrown about eight feet in the air and then bob's trying to have a go he's the little white collar and he usually gets in on the old clangers and and mate usually tries to give it a love bite in the neck and they just they just got this bull still working towards the water and eventually he gets in the water he charges the dogs under and and the ball is facing the wrong way and which we know that you know the only way to get them out is having facing facing the shore so that oh well there's only one stupid thing to do here so we've got to jump in with this bloody ball so that's you know so we jump in there grab the tail and because he has a guy right there and spins you around but you know once we get his head face towards the shore and one of us on the tail um he usually charges out that takes about a couple of minutes because he feels you on his tail and he's gonna knock you off and he's been round around and the dogs come in and he'll charge the dog again hopefully you've got him pointed the right direction uh when the ball's in the water yeah we've figured it now you got to keep the head facing shoreline so when he charges he's charging towards the land because if you haven't faced towards seaway and he charges the dogs he's charging more out to the sea you see and he got up on the rocks there and he roared along on top of the rocks and and he was still trying to get us and i'm yelling for the boys to grab a rope grab her open and just then some more dogs came in and they sort of he was busy worrying about a dog at this point in time and i think by some bit of luck he tripped over and and then that's how we got him on the ground and because normally you know they're pretty hard to throw those big balls and uh yeah that was a bit lucky to have a bit of luck occasionally and so once we hit him on the ground we held him there and then one of the boys john went away and got some coaches and brought them back up onto the rocks and then once he sees you know once he sees his you know quiet cattle there he says well i've got no mate so he roars into them and once he stands there again we talk to them again and the way he goes home if there's any dangerous or tricky sort of situation that needs someone to sort of get off some silly but yeah to sort of go that extra mile it's always christopher here not always we all do no okay jay does too but you are keen to get off all the time oh well it's sort of like a natural instinct with them you know it's just sort of so it's all part of the part of the job i suppose them and it's a bit of fun too we enjoy it every you know we we get we get a bit of a fill out because next day you think man that was scary and uh yeah you think about the next week you know man could have got beat up there but but well you could get run over tomorrow too so what the hell you know but you know we we we you know it looks it looks yeah it is bloody dangerous sometimes but uh but you've got an idea what's love it love it eat sleep and breathe it it's the unexpected day if you get bass against the rock that's when you've got a will what last three weeks ago we had this bull we actually had to put a rope on him and we had him tied for a few seconds and then he saw craig and hit craig tipped him upside down around the rope craig was on the rocks the bull was wiring him around the rocks had him rubbing him around the rocks so we had to ruin and pull the ball off him and uh that's when you've got to have good mates because you don't want your might say oh look there's my mate he's hurt he's hurt you've got to act real quick you know and it's got to be you can't hesitate they've got to be in otherwise yeah and that's where you've got to have good mates real good mates well i used to stay at home and and worry um especially if they were late back um you know they might have stopped off to have a drink at the pub but i didn't know unless i um over the years i guess i've got a lot of faith in chris because i know he knows how to handle himself in most situations i don't i don't worry i i enjoy going out and watching what he does and i don't really worry he gets me in some tricky situations and it's not second skin to me like it is to curse i mean he's just grown up with all this and you know his famous this oh he's always saying it'll be all right because he just you know it'll be just get in there do it you know well you haven't come a cropper yet i've had a few scary moments yeah well i mean scary's part of it isn't it [Music] you

Channel: MrTriassicman

Views: 71,895

Keywords: Danger, wild bulls, New Zealand, (Country)Agriculture (Professional Field), Masculinity, (Quotation Subject)horses, farm dogs, Feminism, adventure, tourism

Id: ACuW2ap7uvA

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 06 2020