Thinking of picking up agriculture (1 Viewer)

[stefgi32]

I'm interesting in a career of caring for animals (not for livestock though, like rescuing and nursing )...this subject seems to talk about some animal anatomy and what to feed certain animals from what I understand, would this be a good subject to take for the kind of career I'm interested in??

 

[Schoey93]

It could help. I'd take biology or chemistry or both too, though. TAFE offers a Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing if you would like to leave high school.

 

[nutcracker]

Agree with Schoey93, it could help with the type of career you want to pursue, but it would be best to also take either bio or chem. Or just chem (because it scales well, heh x]).
But if you wanted my honest opinion just about the subject in general, it would be: RUNNN! RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CANNNNN.

Yep. I didn't have such a good experience doing ag. >>"
Ridiculous amounts of work + slavedriver-cross-evilmarking-teacher + crappy scaling = waste of time (At least that's what it was like for me. But hey, I might have just have had an especially bad experience).
Best of luck =)

 

[stefgi32]

Late response, but thanks for the replies they definetly gave some insight.

I just have to ask one more thing though....and this may be a stupid question but I'll go for it:

Do we learn how to kill or put down animals or anything like that during the course?

The thing is, I'm actually vegetarian..I want to have a better understanding of the agriculture industry to understand some of the "animal rights issues" from both sides of the fence, and also take in the animal science info that the course offers....at the same time, I'm not sure I want participate in the killing of a creature for meat....it feels a bit hypocritical of me. I remember one of my friends who goes to James Ruse telling me they did do something to a sheep when he was in year 7 or 8....I can't remember what it was now, but all I remember is me being :jaw: so it probably wasn't a good thing lol. So yeah, can anyone provide me any info in regards to that?

 

[Ritard_]

um you realise that if you want to be involved in animal rescue and care etc that you will be probably required to put animals down from time to time and watch them suffer a lot etc

???

 

[stefgi32]

Yeah, thats fine but it's different if you're killing them for slaughter. Like it's a bit hypocritical of me to be vegetarian and kill an animal to produce meat..you know what I mean? But yeah, let me rephrase what I said in my previous post....

 

[Ritard_]

yes i understand, im pretty sure they slaughter an animal in agriculture to look at internal organs or something

 

[stefgi32]

Ahh like dissection?

The only genuine killing of animal for livestock I've seen was on this Australian show discussing the issue of pig cruelty in factory farms....they shock the pig so it doesn't feel anything, and they cut it up in a certain way to get it ready for the next step. Have you had to cut up pigs or anything like that in the agriculture course? Or is that just the job of the people that prepare the meat?

 

[Ritard_]

no you dont do anything like that lol

 

[stefgi32]

Oh, then I'm all good then. XD

Thanks for that.

 

[Ritard_]

XDt

 

[MrsA]

It is DET policy that students are not exposed to any animal being killed. So if you are cutting something up in class it will already be dead.
Some teachers might organise for a class to do a dissection of a small animal (such as a rat or chicken) or an organ from the butcher (eg a heart or eye) - as you also might if you take biology. You would not be oligated to paricipate or even watch, but you should be aware that you would be missing out on a good educational opportunity.
If an animal dies on the school farm then the teacher (or a vet) might also do a post mortem on it with the class to determine cause of death. This might help to prevent further death or suffering of animals.
I believe that in the past James Ruse students have participated/watched dissections, post mortems and various standard animal husbandry operations that you may or may not find uncomfortable such as castration and AI.
Basically you should feel comfortable that while studying ag you will not be forced to participate in any activity of this kind.