2022 Manning All Breeds Dairy Youth Camp and Heifer Show at Wingham Showground
It has been cuteness overload at Wingham Showground in the NSW mid north coast on the last week of the spring school holidays, with doe-eyed little dairy heifers (and a few more grown-up ones) acting as models for a show on Friday, October 7.
The heifer show is the culmination of the Manning All Breeds Dairy Youth Camp, a four-day camp for children from nine years old to youth 18-25.
The event has been a long time in the making.
"Our local dairy industry has been battered after the last few years from drought to floods and the camp has been postponed twice already due to COVID lockdowns but now we are finally going ahead," local dairy farmer Joel Dorries said.
A total of 39 heifers spent three days getting the salon treatment as the 38 campers learnt how to prepare cattle for parading ahead of the show on Friday. And going by the half-closed sleepy eyes of one of the animals flanked by its glam squad, the heifers thoroughly enjoyed it.
The heifers have been donated by dairy farms from around the district. The human participants come from as far away as Wagga in NSW and Beaudesert in Queensland, and are a mixture of kids whose families own dairy farms, to kids who have no experience with dairy farming whatsoever.
Fourteen-year-old Chelsea Atkins is one of the ones with experience. She lives on a 300-cow dairy farm at Tamworth, NSW, and she has been most looking forward to the show at the end of camp.
"We love showing cows. We're pretty used to doing it," she said.
Young Jackson is 11 years old and also lives on a dairy farm, at Comboyne, NSW. He was looking forward to learning how to clip the heifers and parade them.
"It's been pretty good so far," he said.
However, the kids are not just learning how to make cows pretty and presentable to a judge. They are also being given lessons on the parts of a cow and confirmation - why they need a wide muzzle (it's the cow's air conditioning system, mentor Andrea Henry explains to me), for example.
They are also learning about animal selection and handling, nutrition, skeletal development and animal welfare, employment opportunities within the dairy industry, marketing business and animals, first aid, the use of drone technology in agriculture, rope halter making, and team work - all in the three days.
The lessons are being given by leading mentors from across the country in their areas of expertise.
"The camp is based around agriculture and farming. Some of (the youth participants) are from beef properties, but this whole week is all about hands on learning opportunities in the agriculture industry," camp organiser Karen Polson explained.
But it's not all hard work. After dinner on the first day a trivia night was held, and on Wednesday night, a disco.
"The whole idea of the camp is for the kids to socially meet, form lifelong friendships, and at the end of the day, just long as it has been fun, that's the main thing," Karen said.