Hundreds of fluffy merinos jostle for space in the pens of Deeargee Station’s woolshed, as shafts of light stream in from rows of glass louvres that rise above them.
Shearers are working to remove super-fine wool from the mob, while rousabouts sweep the smooth floorboards. It’s Hugh and Charlie Sutherland’s job to ensure the team never runs out of sheep and they’re in for a busy day.
Hugh and his wife, Cathie, own the 1400-hectare property near Uralla in the New England region of New South Wales, and run it with their son Charlie. Someone from Hugh’s family has farmed here for the past 180 years since the district was settled. In 1969, his property was split from Gostwyck Station. “The wool brand [for Gostwyck] was a D, an R over a G - phonetical-ly Deeargee,” Hugh Sutherland says, “so that’s what our place was called.”
At the entrance to the woolshed, there’s a visual representation of the station’s fortunes. Every year from 1, a tally of bales was stencilled onto the wall in varying shades of red - rising from 380 to more than 900 a decade later. The wool clip halved when Deeargee separated from Gostwyck, but bales remained an important indicator of success.
Times are changing for Deeargee. “The wool market has been very volatile and sheep are harder to look after,” Hugh says of the family’s pivot towards cattle. 28-year-old Charlie will be the seventh generation of the family to own Deeargee and he’s leading its diversification - growing a herd of Speckle Park stud cattle through artificial insemination and embryo transfers.
“I enjoy putting two things together and getting the results, I'm just fascinated in
the ups and downs of all that and sourcing genetics - and I'm a bit of a hoarder of frozen genetics.”
“Hugh has a very good business mind,” Cathie says of her husband’s pragmatism, “whereas Charlie is a fantastic stockman. They have their moments working together,” she laughs, “but there’s nothing a chocolate cake can’t fix.” According to Hugh, there’ll always be sheep on the sandy-coloured hills of Deeargee - but perhaps not as many of them.
“The worst reason for doing something is because that's the way you've always done it,” he says. “There’s a saying: if you do what you always did, you get what you always got.”
