0 present participle of shepherd --
1 to make a group of people move to where you want them to go, especially in a kind, helpful, and careful way: --
Allied to the central myth are several others, masquerading as explanations for the transition from shepherding to fencing.
When the country was first taken up in the fifties it was pretty much all alike; and in the shepherding times, which continued up to about 1874, when fencing began.
It was the sedentary nature of shepherding that led to many problems recognised by early flockowners, and pre-conditioned them to accept more readily some of the subsequent changes.
Unfortunately, there are no statistics before 1886 showing the change in management from shepherding to paddocking.
There is some irony that earlier observers criticised shepherding from fixed huts and hurdle yards as causing similar problems.
Subsequent legislation varied the conditions, but the essential requirement of fencing remained, thus hastening the spread of fences, and the end of shepherding.
Although shepherding now seems quaint, it was and remains an ideal sheep management system under a broad range of social, cultural and environmental conditions.
Shepherding was slow, unskilled, interminably monotonous, safe and done on foot.
