Squatters brought their herds and flocks to the Port Phillip district from 1834, however it was not until 1841 that they first moved into the northern plains to claim the country for their own.⁷ With increased stock numbers and most of the better-watered land of Port Phillip already claimed, fierce competition forced run seekers to move further afield to find fresh pastures. In 1840 there remained only the areas of Gippsland, the Wimmera, the Mallee, and 'the scantily watered plains in the north'.⁸ In initial assessments of the country's grazing capacity, the northern plains with their intermittent water supply and patterns of seasonal vegetation growth were judged as wanting. However, following rains that transformed the country in 1841, the first runs on the plains were taken up along the Campaspe, Murray and Loddon Rivers. Based on the capitalist notion of economy, the business of sheep and cattle stations relied on the water and fodder potential of the northern plains to produce the commodities of livestock, meat and wool. Waterways were dammed, Aboriginal soaks enlarged,⁹ channels excavated from rivers and swamps, and, as the climate varied, people and stock relocated.

The changing landscape of pastoralism can be traced through the documentary record held for Restdown Plains station taken up on the Campaspe River in 1841 by John Hays for Captain George Benson.¹⁰ In looking for land for a run, David Munro came across Restdown Plains in the drought year of 1842, the same year the station was sold to David Kelsh. Munro was less than impressed with what he saw:

Affected by the financial crisis of 1842, Kelsh sold the station and his 3500 sheep to Alexander Sim in November 1843.¹² In March 1848, Sim stocked 500 cattle and 12,000 sheep on a run of 106,922 acres that incorporated a head station and nine outstation huts, six of which were located on the Campaspe River.¹³ In 1853, new licensee John Pearson Rowe was making the most of the growing demands of the goldfield markets. In January of that year, stock numbers had risen significantly to 1110 cattle, 16,000 sheep and 19 horses.¹⁴ In 1855, after subdividing the run into Restdown Plains East and Restdown Plains West, Rowe continued to bring merino wethers from Queensland for sale in Bendigo, fattening the sheep at Restdown Plains West in conjunction with his other run held at Terrick Terrick on the northern plains. Like other squatters who took over runs on the plains from the mid-1850s to exploit the opportunities of the burgeoning goldfields, Rowe responded to the unpredictability of the climate by using his northern runs in winter, and, when dry seasons occurred, building up stock on his better-watered Five Mile Creek run in Gippsland.

The effects of the business of pastoralism on native flora and fauna, and on the Barababaraba people who depended on these food sources, were soon evident. Squatter Edward Curr, traversing the northern plains from the Campaspe River to Mount Hope in the early 1840s, noted the impact of stock after only two years of grazing:

In 1853, squatter Charles Hall recorded the drop in numbers of kangaroos, emus, quail and turkeys in the Loddon and Wimmera districts, which he had explored earlier in 1840-42.¹⁶ In addition to a reduction in food resources, the use and alteration of watercourses impacted dramatically on Aboriginal populations. Squatters established runs along the same watercourses that Aboriginal people depended on. Grazing regimes mirrored traditional Aboriginal movements: in winter, animals were fed and watered in the 'back country' away from rivers, and in summer they were moved to water frontages.¹⁷ Gerard Krefft in 1857, in remarking on the site of an Aboriginal rock well at the Terricks, noted that it was 'not accessible to the herds of sheep and cattle, who went to drink at a muddy pool in the flat, which contained a thick liquid of a greenish colour the greater part of it being comprised, to judge by the smell, of sheep and cattle dung'.¹⁸