Agriculture News
On Saturday 2 August, 13 students started their journey to The Ekka at Brisbane. We spent seven days enjoying the sun, new experiences and meeting new people.
On the trip up on Saturday we experienced snow! It was a chilly and fun stop. It was a great start to our week.
On Sunday, all the cattle weighed and surprisingly, our biggest steer that weighed 665kg on the Monday before, just scraped in and weighed 646kg. All the other animals met the weight-class expectation, and Ms Bright was very happy.
Monday morning was an early start, waking up at 4:30am, it was Paraders Day. We all hooked in and got our morning jobs done before the schools around us were even up, which was pleasing and gave us plenty of time to prep our animals for our classes later in the day. We all did very well, Chad B made it through to the finals class; he kept his cool all throughout while he was in the ring. At the beginning, he didn’t get pulled into the front line, but Chad, doing what he does best, was concentrating and never gave up. Then the judge came back and pulled him into 5th place which made everyone cheer and we were very happy. Samantha S also made it into the finals for her age group and did a fantastic job.
Tuesday was another busy one, we had junior steer classes which we had two steers entered in. Both got a ribbon, our steers came away with 7th place and 4th place, which was really good. Our only heifer, went in on Tuesday and she was placed 5th which we were happy with. We had Junior Judging and group Junior Judging on this day as well. In our group we had Bethany W, Samantha S and Lily C. They put all their best efforts in but just didn't score enough points to get through to the oral. We had individual junior judging, for our age groups, Millie B was fortunate enough to score enough points to get through to the next round which was an oral. She presented her oral very nicely and received highly commended.
On Wednesday we had all our steer classes. It was a busy day, with nine animals going in the ring, from lightweight to heavyweight. We came away with 6 ribbons which was super exciting, the steers placed 2nd, 4th, 5th x 2, 6th and 7th.
On Wednesday afternoon, the auction was held and we had four animals entered. They all sold well and the highest one sold for was $10.60/kg. After we sent the last animals to the yards, we packed up all the gear at the ring and packed up all the beds where the cattle were, and then we went and got all dressed up ourselves! We went out for a team dinner on Wednesday at the Jubilee which was a short walk from the showground. We enjoyed a very well-deserved dinner! We got a sleep in on Thursday which was much needed after our many early mornings, and we set off for a day in the city. We enjoyed the sunshine and seeing the city. We walked to the wharf where we caught the ferry to Southbank. We enjoyed the break after a busy few days.
We would like to say a huge thank you to - Mrs Andrea Burns for making us scarves especially for Ekka, Tammie and Mick Neely for giving up their week to make us all our meals and drive the bus, Katie Sutcliffe for giving up her week and helping us in all areas possible, Travis Worth and, Josephine Green for giving up their time to help us out, all our other supports, parents and breeders, and Ms Bright for all the endless effort she puts in and for giving us the opportunity to go!
Annabelle H and Lily C
Agriculture Students
