It is mid-afternoon in the Cattle Pavilion and Rosa Potter lounges on her one-year-old steer Timbertop Buller. The 403-kilogram eating machine is a bit like a living hot water bottle for Rosa, except you don't have to keep topping him up with hot water.
Now Timbertop Buller is on his best behaviour as he slowly munches away while Rosa rests on his back. But on Tuesday it was a different story as she led him around the judging ring. He wasn't co-operative, which ensured that the pair missed out on a ribbon.
Some of Rosa's classmates from Geelong Grammar's Timbertop campus fared better. The stalls occupied by Timbertop steers are full of animals, students and a fair swag of ribbons - seven in all hang over the fence.
Rosa, 14, and her friend Fabia Howard-Smith are two of 20 year 9 Timbertop students attending the Royal Melbourne Show with nine steers raised at the campus in the foothills around Mount Buller. Their steers are going head to head with others raised by secondary school and TAFE students from country Victoria and NSW in the Show's "beef carcase competition".
Having been judged "on the hoof", the steers will now be judged "on the hook" by meat experts at an abattoir tomorrow. Schools use the competition to teach students agricultural and animal husbandry skills, discipline and responsibility. It also teaches them how meat gets from the paddock to the plate.
Students and steers have come from high schools such as Finley, Gundagai, Wagga Wagga, Barham and Nyngan in NSW. Victorian students have come from Kerang, Warragul, Rutherglen, Swifts Creek and Timbertop.
Rosa and her schoolmates have been caring for the animals for the past 10 weeks. This means that four students are at the cattleyards before 7am to feed and water the animals and clean out the cow poo. Four students return to the cattleyards late in the day, following a similar routine.
Rosa says she knew little about cattle before she started caring for them. "It is really, really good. I guess what I like most is coming here and realising how much effort is actually put in to compete and show the cattle … being part of it is really good."
Fabia says she has also enjoyed caring for the animals. "I was told by some of the people from last year that it was really good, so I signed up for it. It's really good, except that you get attached to the cattle, so I'm going to find it hard," she says.
The hard bit she refers to is the bit about the abattoir.
James Bell, head of agriculture at Timbertop, says it is a popular elective subject. "Their animal handling skills improve out of sight. Most of them aren't from farms and they enjoy developing their animal skills, which is great," he says. The chief steward of the Show's beef carcase competition, Dr Anna Richards, says about 150 animals have been entered in the competition, with more than 100 of them entered by schools.
"It certainly teaches them about agriculture," she says.
"A lot of the city kids wouldn't know how the steak ends up on their plate. And for some of these kids, it leads to futures in agriculture."
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