Trivia – Coorumbene Station

In the Squatter prototype, one of the stations was named to honour Bob Lloyd’s wife, Pat. It was was called “Lady Patricia Station”. The publishers felt this was not “in keeping” with the “outback theme” and without consultation re-named it “Birronga Downs”. However, in the next edition, this Station name was changed to “Coorumbene”.

“Coorumbene” was the name of the property selected [more about selectors] in the Loch (VIC) District by Miles McCabe in circa 1870 and was where Pat Lloyd (nee McCabe) grew up. “Coorumbene” is the only real-life name used in Squatter (and although there are some properties that bear the same names as the Squatter sheep stations, this is quite coincidental).

The Coorumbene property was divided up in 1950 into 3 “Soldier Settlements” but these have in recent years, been amalgamated into the original farm. 

The woolmark used on the bale of wool on the “Wool Sale”, square is the woolmark that was used by Coorumbene. “CMBE”, being the abbreviation for Coorumbene and “LA” being Victorian Railway’s designator for Loch Railway Station.

Tucker Bag Card

Tucker Bag Card – Stock Raising Principles

Tucker Bag cards provide insight to many stock raising principles.

​Maintaining farm profitability is often a juggle between two or more conflicting goals. In wool production, one of the juggles is between achieving more valuable, fine quality, low fibre-diameter (micron) wool without reducing the amount of wool produced.According to NSW Department of Primary Industries“Around 90% of the value of a Merino fleece is determined by two traits – fleece weight and average fibre diameter. Selection on either trait of fleece weight or fibre diameter on its own will lead to slow deterioration in the other, it is easy to achieve simultaneous improvement in both traits by using an appropriate selection index to rank sheep on their combined performance for both.” moreCheck out this link to discover the four basic strains of Merino sheep and the range of quality of Merino wool – from “Ultrafine” wool as fine as 12.5 microns through to “Strong” wool over 22 microns.

View of flock of sheep that have been freshly shorn inside shearing shed

Playing a game of Squatter can be just for fun. But the chances are, you will learn a lot about raising sheep and other livestock along the way.

Pay cost of fencing repairs $500

Did you know?

Pay cost of fencing repairs $500. Landing on this square seems like a bit of a nuisance. It is much better than landing on drought – for sure! But it niggles away and eats into profits. In the early part of the game $500 is a big part of your start-up capital, so you need to watch your spending, so you have enough money to pay for the unexpected.

Living on the land, running a farm is quite unlike most other jobs. A really big part of farming is juggling all the routine non-urgent jobs like repairing fences, in between all the essential jobs, like feeding out the hay, or shearing the sheep. In real life it is easy to forget about “repairing the fences”, until one day the stock are wandering over the road. The Trigwell Case was an important legal case that relates to liability for damages from stock wandering loose. More…

Playing a game of Squatter, draws attention to the complexity of farming and the wide range of tasks to be undertaken.