Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) to work as a small farmer.

1941		K. Tennant Battlers 52: His wife’s usual scheme to get him a job ‘cockying’ for one of her uncles or cousins would come to nothing again.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 55: Cockying, farming (1907).
1974		P. Adam-Smith Barcoo Salute 140: I was cockying until then, but with the depression and the drought, I went broke.