At a prison on the outskirts of Muswellbrook, prisoners are helping animals and animals are helping prisoners.
Actually, staff and inmates are involved in a cattle breeding program at St Heliers Correctional Centre.
At the moment, they're hand-raising an orphaned calf.
Ferdinand, the black Angus-cross, was discovered shivering in a paddock during a stock check of newborn calves and expecting cows. He is now living in a stable and being bottle-fed back to health.
Governor Louise Smith said inmates were learning to care for the calf, which needs three bottle feeds a day.
"It was a freezing cold Saturday when they found Ferdinand," Ms Smith said.
"He was really undernourished and skinny. They took him to the stable and made a bed for him out of hay.
"It's now all hands on deck, nurturing him back to health. Inmates do the morning and lunchtime feeds and I share the night time feed with senior assistant superintendent Rohan Archer."
The calf will have formula for another month and then "we'll re-introduce him to the herd when he starts on solids".
Ms Smith said caring for livestock was a new experience for many inmates who come from the city.
"The skills they learn set them up for future agricultural employment," she said.
"Inmates learn basic animal husbandry skills, fencing and pasture-management skills, drenching and how to manage the welfare of these animals."
The centre's manager of industries Col Austen said up to 25 inmates at a time take part in the cattle breeding program.
"There are four bulls and 250 head of cattle to manage," he said.
"Inmates take ownership of their roles and they get paid for their work, which builds their self-confidence and gives them a sense of pride.
"The 500-hectare prison farm also produces vegetables, including a current crop of 6000 broccoli plants, which are processed and distributed to feed inmates across the state."
The minimum-security prison is for male inmates. It provides work and training opportunities in vegetable farming and processing, engineering, housing construction, ground and building maintenance and farming.
Patience and Patients
We wrote yesterday that NSW is apparently the most likely state in Australia to be patient.
To that, Charlestown's Laurie Bowman said: "A bit of patience and we have less [COVID] patients".
He also had an idea for a bumper sticker.
"Drive with patience and have less patients."
Big and Little
We came across these two dogs on our morning walk. Gave us a chuckle.
