Wollemi College at Werrington in western Sydney has taken out the best individual pig carcase during judging of the 2018 school’s commercial pig hoof and hook competition held at the Sydney Royal Show.
Despite only offering agriculture as an elective for three years, Wollemi agriculture teacher, Joe Tabone, said the school was looking to expand the content covered within the program.
“We wanted to try something more ambitious that offered the boys an opportunity to show leadership and take ownership over the tasks at hand,” Mr Tabone said.
“It was a very rewarding experience and a learning curve for students, especially in the live component.”
The pig hoof and hook aims to develop new relationships between the commercial pig industry and youth in agriculture. It was introduced to the pig section at Sydney Royal in 2017.
Continuing for its second consecutive year with the support of Australian Pork Limited, the competition doubled in its second year to involve a total of 14 schools and 42 pigs from across NSW.
Some partaking schools bred their own pigs while others received pigs kindly donated by commercial producers. A range of breeds and cross bred pigs were represented in the competition.
Each school received their three pigs in the second week of the first school term and grew them out to a target weight range of between 65 to 75 kilograms.
The pigs were judged live at the Sydney Royal show, and were then sent to Cowra for processing where the judges assessed the carcases and awarded points at Breakout River Meats.
The live judging was officiated by Jason Hyams, Young, with judging over the hook being completed by Michael Campbell and Jake Bourlet, both from Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga.
Another component of the competition had students creating a PowerPoint presentation detailing how the pigs were raised and prepared within Australian Pork Industry Quality Assurance Program guidelines.
Wollemi’s winning pig and its pen mates were supplied by the University of Sydney Camden campus. They weighed around 47 kilograms at the start, with a finish weight around 70kg.
“We received one Large White pig and the other two were Large White cross Landrace. The winning pig was the Large White,” Mr Tabone said.
In the presentation component Wollemi College received third place, with first going to Orange Anglican Grammar School.
Best pen of three over the hook went to Brisbane Waters Secondary College.
During the hoof section, Yanco Agricultural High School were successful in winning best individual pig and best pen of three pigs with a team they bred themselves. They also received most successful school for the 2018 competition.
