cows create careers!

Sophie Goodland,Melissa Dyson

and Monique Broeders.

My name is Pudding

And my name is Mya!

Our group name: md,sg,mbOur jobs: we cleaned up the area were we prepare the milk and feed.

Our group feed and watered the calves from Wednesday the 7th of may to Friday 9th of may 2008!

We used a lot of recycled things to make our pen for the calves. We bought the pine shaving and straw for the inside of the pen new.Here is what we used:old tin tank cut in half2 gatesPlastic cable ties2 star postsSecurity netting

We each helped make the pen and we all put in suggestions to make the pen better.

Mr Alistair McCosh arrived on April 21st with the calves.With the pen made and the feed organised everything was on track.

We set up their water bucket and put feed in their other bucket. The calves had already been fed previously so we didn’t have to give them any milk.

On the second day that we had the calves, they decided to do a runner on us. Two of our teachers had to catch the calves and put them back in their pen.

The calves had found a small gap in-between the gate and the tank which they managed to jump over. As soon as we returned to school we set to work securing the pen with the security netting.

So how do we get out of here pudding??

hmmmmm. It looks like there is a

hole fence over there. We can wait

until all these people go home.

Then well try it .

Feeding was horrible!

The calves would head butt the milk bucket and we would get milk all over ourselves. As we fed them we had to hold onto the bucket really hard! We kept jamming our fingers in-between the gate and the bucket. One group even had to re-fill the bucket because the calves knocked it off the fence!

Eight cups of milk powder.

Four cups of hot water.

Three cups of cold water.

And mix together.

The milk should be around 40* before you give it to the calves.

Now all you have to do is pour it in the feeder

And the calves are as happy as Larry.

Each group took turns in feeding the calves. We would feed the calves for three days in a row and then another group would do it. Over the weekend Ricky Glare would feed the calves because he lives just a few hundred meters from the school.

Because the calves were older and we didn’t want to interrupt classes too much, we would give the calves a milk drink at 9:00am and we would have a bucket of feed and a bucket of water in the pen for them to eat and drink as they liked. We would top up the water bucket and make sure they had enough feed for the night before we went home.

We weight the calves a week after they arrived and they weighed:

Mya 99kg Pudding 96kg.

We didn’t have another chance to weigh the calves.

Because of school camps and year 10 work experience the calves had to leave early. They went home on May 9th at 12pm. Mr Alistair McCosh came to pick them up. We had to tie cardboard on the side of the trailer so that wind didn’t get in and make the calves cold. We also put straw down on the bottom of the trailer so that the calves could be as comfortable as possible.

Stzelecki Lions Club

Dairy Australia

The Dairy Industry

West Vic Dairy

Hamilton Animal Health

Camperdown Veterinary Clinic

Colac Veterinary Clinic

O'Callaghan's Parade Vet Clinic

Reid Stock feeds - medicated animal food stuffFor the “ elite” calf starter mix.

Murray Goulburn For the calf milk.

Sarah Smith! Sarah was our mentor for this project and without her nothing would have run smoothly!Thanks Sarah you were great!

The farmers Bruce and Ruth Johnstone.Thank you for trusting us with your calves, it was a great experience to look after them. Thank you very much.

Our teacher Mr Poynton.You did a great job organising everything, thank you for the experience!