Melbourne Show opens its gates

Getting a teenager out of bed early on a Saturday can be tricky, especially when it calls for scrubbing out a cow pen at 5am.

But that has been no problem for 16 students from Wagga Wagga Christian College who have been preparing their steers for this year's Royal Melbourne Show.

Along with other regional schools, the college is hoping its six steers can walk away with prize ribbons this year.

The students who take part in the extra-curricular program volunteer their lunch break and afternoons looking after and training the cattle.

Teacher David Crick, who runs the program, believes that as well as benefiting from hands-on experience, students take away a lot of other things from preparing the bulls for the big day.

"They gain a lot of self-confidence," he said on the opening day of the show on Saturday. "Being able to walk a 500-kilo animal around is a pretty confidence-boosting thing for some students."

Being a farm girl, 13-year-old student Charlotte Nugent is stoic when it comes to the fate of the steers.

"They get judged live and then they go to the abattoir and then they get killed," Charlotte said.

"Then they get judged on their meat.

"I'll probably be a little sad ... we've spent all this time giving them cuddles and everything to make them really quiet."

Isabella Batchelor-Weule is especially excited as she has never visited a city before.

"I've never, ever been to the city, so this is a new experience for me," the 15-year-old said. "It's a really thrilling experience.

"It's really busy and different to what I'm used to."

More than 500,000 people are expected through the gates of the agricultural show, which began on Saturday and runs for 11 days.