Agriculture

Our Cattle and Sheep Clubs compete at the Royal Queensland Show, Farmfest, Royal Toowoomba Show and other local shows. The College is home to a small Angus beef cattle stud and sheep are shown from the SCOTS PGC Texel stud.

Cattle Club

Apart from practical work undertaken as part of the curriculum, interested students are also encouraged to participate in the preparation and showing cattle as part of the College’s co-curricular programme. Each year we attend a number of local shows as well as some larger shows and competitions (eg. Beef Expo in Rockhampton, Royal Toowoomba, Farmfest, Royal Queensland, Ag Show).

Students learn to do all of the work involved in the showing of cattle – breaking in, washing, clipping, grooming, parading and judging. We have excellent facilities at the College for all of these activities.

Instruction in junior parading and judging are encouraged to compete.

Sheep Club

Similar to Cattle Club, students may choose to participate in the Sheep Club, which exhibits sheep from the SCOTS Texel stud (established in 1999). Each year we exhibit at the Allora, Pittsworth, Inglewood, Warwick, Royal Toowoomba, Goondiwindi, Gatton and Royal Brisbane shows. At each show, we typically compete against between one and three other Texel breeders and then, with any Champions, subsequently compete for the inter-breed Championship against winners from the other seven or eight meat sheep breeds.

Sheep Club is a popular co-curricular activity, especially with students in Years 5-10. Wednesday afternoons see a group of up to 15 students gather at the sheep yards, for activities which include:

• Weekly weighing of the sheep to monitor growth
• Husbandry operations such as drenching, hoof paring, tail docking and ear tagging
• Show preparation (breaking in young sheep and training them to lead and stand)
• Instruction of students in parading technique and how to judge