General News
7 October, 2025
Melbourne Show brings wider experience for Longy students
Students from Longerenong College's Show Steers program recently attended the Melbourne Royal Show.
Across several days, they gained valuable experience in preparing cattle for competition, including early handling, leading, washing, and grooming, culminating in learning show etiquette and competing in the ring.
The week was capped off with the Melbourne Polytechnic Trophy for Highest Scored Carcass bred by a school.
Walking through the Livestock shed, trainer and Show Steer coordinator, Vivien Welsh, said it was a great opportunity for the students to see first-hand how the market worked.
“Cattle are broken up into three weight divisions,” she said.
“400 kilo(gram)s to 480 kilos is your domestic class. 480 to 560 kilos is your heavy domestic (and) 560 kilos plus is export class.
“They've all got different specifications that they need to get for their rump muscle, their eye muscle and their fat cover.
“(With) export class, as the name suggests, the market wants bigger cuts of meat, a bit more fat on them, and they go for export. That doesn't mean to say that we can't find them in Australia on butcher shelves, it's just that they're not what the consumer wants in Coles and Woollies.
“So if you're getting a 480-kilo live-weight animal, they're about 12 months old. All of these animals are around 12 to eight months and so you know that you're gonna get, out of a 450 kilo carcass, you're probably going to get about 230 kilos of meat – (they know) all of the steaks are going to be this size, all the meats going to be this colour, all the fats going to be this colour. Then that's what the abattoirs build everything around.”
Vivien kept walking and pointed out the different categories of beef cattle the students could see up close - Bos taurus, Bos indicus and British breeds - but really the number one experience for the students there was to learn about dealing with the animals in that environment; for some of them, it was their first time.
“Breaking in animals to harness, to halter, is very, very different from how you would handle them in the yard,” she said.
“I tell them that everything that you've learned about safe cattle handling, we're going to ignore when you're doing halter-broken animals; you learn how to read an animal and how to calm yourself.”
One student definitely keen on expanding from his on-farm experience was Jack Batson – at Longerenong College for his first year in a Certificate IV Agriculture, and also a wool classing certificate.
He said with his family’s 1000-acre mixed farm beckoning as a succession plan at some point in the future, he wanted to gain a wider academic foundation before going back.
He said he was appreciating everything from understanding better how the stomachs of cows work, and with other livestock and subjects like cropping analysis, part of his learning, he was feeling better about having a “decent amount of knowledge in the different sections of our farm”.
“I'll be the seventh generation to work our farm, and I'm the fifth generation to live in our house,” Jack said.
“So it makes me nervous and almost stressed, because … what if I'm the final generation? What if I end up selling it? Am I going to let down Dad, Pa and then all the other fam (and) the rest of the generations?
“I don't want to let them down. So it's a lot of weight to be put on my shoulders.”
Another Cert IV agriculture student, Eliza Mounsey, was relishing the opportunity to see even more of the “behind the scenes” part of meat production and the variances between what a large supermarket chain might require from farmers compared to the overseas market.
“It's really interesting to see all the differences,” she said.
Her journey has taken her from her family home just outside Geelong through three years working on her aunt’s dairy farm, “because school wasn’t working out for me,” where she began to see new opportunities and interests open up.
Expecting to follow up with an Applied Diploma in Agronomy, Eliza said the Show Steers component was just one part of her journey.
“I think it's good to learn the broad subject, because you learn all of it, and then you can choose where you want to go off,” she said.
“It opens up a lot of different, smaller topics that you wouldn't have really thought were a thing before.
“I think all of it is so amazing to learn, and it really opens your eyes and shows you the whole picture of agriculture.”