In the lead up to this year’s Sydney Royal Easter Show, the students will be taking care of 12 chicks for the annual Steggles Meat Bird Pairs competition. 

The day-old chicks arrived at the school on February 27 and the students will be required to raise them over a six week period before selecting their two heaviest and healthiest chickens to be judged in the competition at the Royal show in April. 

The top 12 finalist birds will then be on display at the Steggles Poultry Pavilion.

“The Meat Bird Pairs competition gives high school students a relevant and meaningful experience of the New South Wales farming and agricultural industry and we are proud to be able to help provide an opportunity for students and learn about Australian farming practices in a practical way,” Steggles brand manager, Laurel Brown said.

Mount View agriculture teacher, Craig Jarret, said the competition will be a very rewarding experience for the class.

“I think this competition will give them some real hands on experience and hopefully they will learn some skills that they can use later on in life,” he said.

This is the second year that Mount View High has taken part in the Meat Bird competition and Mr. Jarret said they have definitely picked up some tips since last year’s efforts.

The students said they are all looking forward to attending the show and hope their chicks will grow up to be big and strong.***

For the second year in a row, Mount View High School’s multi-categorical class has taken out the scarecrow competition at the Cessnock Show. 

This year’s entry was a female scarecrow named Lynne that the class spent five days working on.

Lynne, who is also pregnant, was made as a wife for the class’s male scarecrow that took out the competition last year.

Plans are already underway to enter a baby scarecrow for next year’s show, to add to the growing scarecrow family now located in the school’s vegie patch.