Calf rearing encompasses a variety of hands-on skills that are important for agriculture students to learn. From veterinarians and dairy farmers to calf care specialists and dairy farm maternity technicians, these skills are used in a variety of agriculture careers that your students can explore. Our Calf Simulator can give students safe, hands-on practice with some of these skills, giving students an idea of what day-to-day life would look like in these careers.
Ear Tagging and Hormone Injections
Ear tagging is an important part of calf rearing, allowing you to better manage the herd. This simulator allows you to not only practice ear tagging but also hormone injections. The simulator comes with 10 pairs of pliable ears for students to practice with.
Blood Draws and Injections
Blood drawing and injection skills are valuable for agriculture students to practice. The Calf Simulator gives students the opportunity to practice both these skills. This simulator allows for tail and jugular blood draws. It even has a foot pump to simulate a jugular pulse. Plus, the self-healing tubing allows for up to 500 injections!
Tube Feeding
Another important calf rearing skill is tube feeding. The Calf Simulator allows students to get hands-on practice with this skill. It even has green and red tubes for assessments. If water exits through the red tube, it means the water entered the lungs. If water exits through the green tube, the water entered the esophagus.
Navel Swelling and Castration
Calf rearing involves checking the calf’s navel for swelling, another skill students can practice with this unique simulator. It comes with two removeable navels that allow students to assess whether the navel is swollen. The simulator also includes two removeable scrotums that students can use for hands-on castration practice.
Standards-Based Curriculum
The Calf Simulator comes with downloadable curriculum that covers a variety of calf rearing topics. It contains three lessons on basic calf care, castration, and feeding. The entire curriculum can take up to five hours to teach. However, you can select specific lessons or activities to use in your current lessons. It includes presentation slides, student activities, and assessments.
Additional Resources
Looking for more resources for your agriculture classes?
- Watch our on-demand webinar about bovine skills training
- See how you can implement the Calf Simulator and other animal science learning aids in your program here
- Explore all of our bovine skills teaching tools here
