The Year 11 agriculture students at Narooma last week took delivery of 14 one-day-old chicks supplied by competition sponsor Steggles.

Volunteers and students from Abbotsleigh Senior School, Wahroonga and Elderslie High School, Narellan placed more than 1000 chicks in ventilated boxes to be couriered to schools across NSW from Sydney Showground, Sydney Olympic Park.

Students and their teachers who raise the chicks will then be permitted to enter one pair of male and one pair of female meat birds in the Poultry Show at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, which this year runs from March 23 until April 3.

The Narooma students have designed a food program for their birds aimed at maximising their growth in the six weeks leading up to the 2018 Sydney Royal Easter Show where their selected pairs will be judged.

Yolande Thompson explained that half of the chicks were being fed regular chicken feed and the other half were getting special “turkey crumble”, with the idea to compare the growth rates.

The chicks were putting on amazing 10 grams a day with the heaviest chick weighing 135 grams, she said.

“It's great to see how they are growing and what the end product will be, I guess,” Yolande said.

The four chosen young chickens will be judged alive to see how they have been brought up and then will be processed so that their carasse, confirmation and weight can be judged. 

The 10 remaining chickens will be processed locally and probably end up on the dinner table of the ag students’ families.

The competition provides students with a glimpse into the poultry industry and works to dispel hormone myths surrounding chicken meat production.

The competition will be judged by an industry representative on the potential value of the birds exhibited to the commercial trade.

Poultry competitions have been a feature of Sydney Royal Easter Shows since 1858.

In 2017 the winner of the Steggles Sydney Royal Schools Meat Bird Pairs Competition in the Male category was Wellington High School and in the Female bird category, Elderslie High School, Narellan. Both Schools are re-entering the competition in 2018. 

The Narooma High School agriculture program meanwhile is going from strength to strength under the guidance of teacher Kylie Maher.

There are now 26 students on the cattle show team and they are preparing their 10-month limousin heifers for the upcoming Canberra Show and then the Sydney Royal Easter Show in the parading and cattle judging competitions.

Ms Maher said several students had gone onto careers or further education in the agriculture sector, including all of her 2017 graduating class, including Rotary tertiary scholar Alicia Bate who is headed to Texas, USA for a gap year of work before starting university.