How television show Muster Dogs prompted a change in the way the Lawlors wean cattle

"The UHF radios are being used a bit because I don't understand Simon's sign language," Mrs Lawlor said.

The Hereford breeders, who farm at Upper Livingstone, Omeo, will be among the major vendors at Omeo's Hereford sale when they offer 220 mixed-sex calves, including 150 steers, for sale.

In the last few years, Mrs Lawlor has swapped the Omeo hospital where she works in administration to focus on running the farm with her husband.

"I always wanted to work on a farm, but I'm 56 and back when I was 20 and growing up, you didn't work on a farm and you were expected to learn something off farm," Mrs Lawlor, a former kindergarten and primary school teacher, said.

Their 1215-hectare property is home to 400 cows which produce April and May-drop calves featuring Marwarra, Newcomen and Sugarloaf bloodlines, with Injemira Genetics introduced last year.

Mr Lawlor said his wife had always played an integral role by managing the farm's finances and animal health records, but her recent shift to operations had opened his eyes to new opportunities.

"I never really thought of myself much as a traditionalist, but when I look back I probably was," he said.

"Sonya is four-foot nothing so she's not very big and not very strong, but one of the things that I've really noticed is you don't have to use broad and brute strength to get things done."

A major change to the operation led this year by Mrs Lawlor was how cattle were weaned, with the main aim to improve stock handling and lower stress on the calves post-weaning.

The idea to grow their knowledge about weaning cattle was inspired by the ABC television show Muster Dogs and a local connection with world-class dog trainer Neil McDonald who featured on the series.

At the time, graziers Bruce and Tanya Guaran were managing nearby Cobungra Station and organised Mr McDonald to run a school in the area in what the Lawlors described as an "eye opener".

What followed was a series of lessons with Mrs Guaran over four days, who started her own business called Stock Movement, on the Lawlors' property.

"We weaned them and kept the calves in the yards and basically the process involved using good, well-controlled dogs in the yards to do what Tanya calls positive penning," Mrs Lawlor said.

"The dogs fill up the yards without pressure and cattle are happy to go into the yards and don't fight you."

In the past, Mr Lawlor would keep his calves in the yards for four or five days after weaning, but through the education program, the pair managed to reduce that timeframe down to just one or two days.

"Some of the statistics I've heard is that for every night calves spend in the yards after weaning, it takes a week to regain that lost weight," he said.

"The last mob we got in that morning, took the calves off the cows at 8am and they were out of the yards the following day and feeding which is just about unheard of.

"Two-thirds of the calves did two nights in the yards after weaning, and one lot did one night because Tanya didn't have as many to focus on."

The results have prompted the pair to plan to wean this year's calves in December, a month earlier than usual.

"Hopefully we'll grow the feed for the weaners which I think we're pretty good at," Mr Lawlor said.

"We want to get a lot more efficient with our resources and costs."

The pair are also considering other profit-driving factors and have employed an agronomist.

"One of our sons is coming home with his wife and he wants to work on the farm... he won't be on the farm full-time, but we have to look at how we expand to be more profitable," Mr Lawlor said.

"It's exciting for me to see Sonya excited about the farm and to be 50 per cent of the operation."

Mrs Lawlor, an avid gardener, said farming was not too dissimilar to her favourite pastime.

"I like to look at getting on a tractor as gardening just on a much-bigger scale," she said.