Малды қашыққа көшіру дәстүрі

Practice of walking livestock over long distances

Droving is the practice of walking livestock over long distances. It is a type of herding. Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the aid of dogs—has a very long history in the Old World. 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.

Droving is the practice of moving livestock herds over long distances by walking them "on the hoof", sometimes several hundred kilometers. It was carried out by shepherds. 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 and Great Britain, 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 dogs 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. 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 and of Australia. In 1866, cattle drives in the United States moved 20 million head of cattle from Texas to railheads in Kansas. In Australasia, long distance drives of sheep 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.

A weekly cattle market was founded midway between North Wales and London in Newent, Gloucestershire in 1253. 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 to provision his armies in France.

In the 18th century English graziers of Craven Highlands, West Riding of Yorkshire, went as far as Scotland 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" from the northern Scotland to Great Close near Malham, a distance of over 300 mile (483 km).

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. 8,000 sheep survived the journey. The Tibbett brothers drove a flock of 30,000 ewes in the early 1890s from Wellshot Station to Roma in Queensland, 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 5000 mile (8047 km) 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 in New South Wales, a straight line distance of around At the time, it was considered a "remarkable" feat of droving and took 18 months to complete.