Talk:Station (Australian agriculture)

Latest comment: 1 year ago by GenQuest in topic Proposed merge

Categories edit

I have removed the Livestock and Real Estate categories. These are not justified. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 18:59, 17 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

Photo of Station edit

The picture evidently shows a farm, since there is a traffic sign visiable. The stations i have been on are a long way from the front gate, and you would typically not see such things near the station house. (I've lived on both...)

Also, it looks something like a dairy farm to me. --Wendy.krieger (talk) 08:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

I took the photo and this is a large remote cattle station in NSW, too far away from anywhere to be a dairy.Cgoodwin (talk) 23:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)Reply

Jackaroo and jillaroo edit

Jackaroo (trainee) and Jillaroo (trainee) are redirects that currently link here. However, Jackaroo (trainee) probably should be an article, with Jillaroo (trainee) a redirect to that article. Both redirects now have incoming links; formerly they were piped to Stockman. 69.3.72.249 (talk) 17:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

Silly to make a tiny article. Expand sections in existing articles until they are big enough to warrant their own. Too many stubs. Montanabw(talk) 20:20, 29 September 2010 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Montanabw. There are other more common workers that are performing the same duties in OZ.Cgoodwin (talk) 21:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)Reply
Just bringing this up to date: Jackaroo (trainee) is now a decent article with a fair coverage of the history of the term's usage, evolution and social implications, and Jillaroo (trainee) is a redirect to the same article. The references are adequate. However, see #Ringer.

Ringer edit

Other terms (besides #jackaroo) mentioned in § Personnel still need clarification, including ringer; boreman; and grader [driver].

The most detail I've found on the different meanings of "ringer" (and related terms) on Aussie stations (not to be confused with dead ringer, also current Aussie slang) is in the blog article and comments: Cowboy, ringer or stockman? by Lisa Clarke, 27 May 2013. The description of a "ringer" in stockman (Australia) covers only some of this ground; in particular, it doesn't cover the usage "ringer" to distinguish those stockmen who work in the stock camps from those who work mostly at the head station, i.e. near the owner's or manager's house ("homestead" or "station").

Nor is there a clear etymology for the term "ringer" as used here.

Warning: The following is speculation only; I have no sources for any of it! Two possibilities spring to mind:

  1. That, as a seasonal worker only, he was a bit of an outsider to the station's patriarchal social hierarchy, somebody to call on or "ring in" only when economically necessary (the noun form "ring-in" for a substitute has long been used in Australia); and
  2. That, as a worker based at one of the stock camps that ring the central station, that is, a "ring camp" – an expression which I seem to recall reading many years ago, but memory is notoriously unreliable!

Further research is necessary to clarify these terms with reference to reliable sources. yoyo (talk) 04:25, 23 January 2017 (UTC)Reply

Cockburn, Rodney. Pastoral Pioneers of South Australia, vol 1 & 2 available at ANU edit

A useful resource -- Paul foord (talk) 12:33, 3 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

Proposed merge edit

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I propose that the following articles are combined into a single article:

All these articles are about cattle and sheep farms in Australia and New Zealand, and essentially cover the same topic. The lead sentences for example each are extremely similar:

  • In Australia, a station is a large landholding used for producing livestock, predominantly cattle or sheep, that needs an extensive range of grazing land.
  • A station or run, in the context of New Zealand agriculture, is a large farm dedicated to the grazing of sheep and cattle.
  • In Australia and New Zealand, a cattle station is a large farm (station is equivalent to the American ranch), the main activity of which is the rearing of cattle.
  • A sheep station is a large property (station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat.

The new article, covering both cattle and sheep stations in Australia and New Zealand would simply be titled "Station (agriculture)", and included country and animal-specific sections as required. --Spekkios (talk) 20:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Strong disagree - it is all very well to look at the superficial surface level - the actual details of the agricultural practices and land types on which it is carried out are quite different, and from that there are a range of cultural differences as well as land management practices - which a combined article would create a behemoth - the separation of the content and substance of the practices is important. The full cultural and economic and environmental context of Australian agricultural history has not been fully explored or expanded in the article - the separation of the article is at it stands useful and fertile ground for possible elaboration of the differences that exist, making a single article would be of no benefit for the reader or the editing community to work on the material.
To understand the range of material that has been created in agricultural and environmental literature about management of the lands - and the ramifications for practices on the different land types and the difference in land management regulation in the various states of australia in itself something that does not carry over to new zealand agriculture. JarrahTree 04:06, 26 October 2022 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.