 | Sheep showing - the kit! The following is a list of suggestions and products, which may be helpful to those contemplating the exhibiting of sheep for the first time at various agricultural shows around the country.
Showing sheep in competitive classes at agricultural and other type shows both large and small is good fun and popular with many flockowners, as well as being profitable as a shop window if you are a breeder of pedigree stock.
Showing livestock at all levels is usually both competitive and serious, and there is a degree of protocol, which is generally strictly adhered too. Also there are a number of "essential" items you need, and then there are the "necessary" products, which soon also become "essential" if you are going to take the job "seriously!"
If you start to do a good few shows each year it will pay to have a prepared "check list" It is amazing what you can forget to take with you. Remember when loading the sheep to also pack their essentials plus some other important items, these include…
Food supplies - coarse mix and adequate hay
(They get most aggrieved if you forget!)
Sufficient buckets - for water and feed mixing,
The required number of feed toughs
Spare supply of baler twine - always useful
Pen sheets - if you use them!
PLUS…
Show and stock entry tickets and all the other forms and paperwork necessary.
A clean white coat to wear in the ring!
PUBLICITY MATERIAL - MARKETING!!
Do remember every show is a wonderful platform from which you can freely promote the sale of your stock. You pay more than enough at some major shows for the privilege of entering your sheep, and even if you walk off with the "Breed Championship" it will hardly be enough to pay the expenses incurred to attend. So use the occasion profitably!
Over the years I have met far to many flock owners who have come to their first show - won a first or even the championship, and had not an item of publicity material to take advantage of the situation. Make sure you have an appointed "assistant" armed with a digital camera standing in a good position at the ringside taking shots or if possible movie clips of your possible "finest hour". (Make sure they are familiar with the camera to avoid a collection of blank images or 5 minutes of the green grass they are standing on!)
Consider erecting a board above your pens displaying at the minimum your flock prefix, farm or holding address and the essential contact details - telephone, fax numbers, e-mail and website details if you are "IT advanced!" Good A4 size images of your best sheep - leave out the lesser quality guys they will not impress! Lastly the magic words "Visits & inspection without commitment welcome" (whether you tell them the directions home upon leaving without buying - is up to you!)
Resist the temptation to write too much in your advertising "wording"
Over the years I have seen some ultra keen folk who sought to enter the Guinness Book of records for unlimited volumes of text, which left the poor viewer reeling from eye ache!
Keep it brief, but deadly to the point! At few suggestions……..
PROLIFICALLY TWINS
Don't labour on about triplets and quads - you will frighten to death many who have first hand experience of rearing these struggling multiples.
DESIRABLE MEAT CARCASS
What every good butcher dreams about!
BRED for BREEDING
- says it all!
Leaflets/brochures and business cards hanging off your pens- vital if you are in the business of selling stock. Just make sure they are out of reaching distance of the pen occupants! You might return to find they have all gone within the first hour!
Lastly, carry the means to meet any possible exceptional expenses! Should you be propelled to the great heights of "Breed Champion" your "delighted" colleagues will want to empty your pension fund at the bar! (One can only survive in the toilets for a limited period before having to appear!)
THE BARE ESSENTIAL SHOWING KIT!
Trimming shears
Needed for the purposes of trimming the fleece to the desired style/fashion
Halter/s
Cotton or leather, make sure if you need a lead rein - you have one!
White exhibitors coat/s for yourself
You may need two coats if you do something unexpected like winning your breed championship. The next day you may need to represent your breed in an all "Breed Championship" line up and will need/want to look your best!
THE NOT ESSENTIAL - but if you get keen they soon become ESSENTIAL!
Sheep trimming stand
Very useful for trimming if you are on your own and have several sheep. (Ones wife gets tired and lacks concentration after 6 or 7 hours of hanging on to the sheep!)
Show box
Essential if you don't want it all "nicked" while you are visiting the toilets!
Sheep show coats
Keeps the little darlings clean before the big day. Stop aluminium stains from show pens and trailers.
Fleece dressing
The liquid you can smell everywhere but nobody will tell you what it is - it tightens the fleece - used by many lowland breeds.
Flattening board
Not often seen about these days, a useful tool from the days of the old masters! In my day everybody had one and it was the last thing you used before entering the ring!
Not something you can buy - you get one made. Size: About the size of a A4 sheet of paper, 3/8th - inch thick - made from a flat piece of oak, ash, or elm. Sanded as smooth as glass. Fix a handle on one side and on the other dress the surface with top quality olive oil. (best stuff often found in the kitchen!)
How to use it!
Use it like an iron. It can be used on back, sides, rear ends and fronts to give a super flat effect. Sprinkle a small drop of quality olive oil on the surface and rub over the whole surface, before you start "ironing" - this will add "lustre" to the wool and pull off any bits left from trimming.
Carders
Key item for fleece preparation! Use carders such as the "Royal " - "County",
- "Champion" and "Supreme" on adult sheep and consider the Tender Care range for lambs. Hindes curved are popular also with breed not so heavily carded. Carding is a "knack" and all wrist action! Card upwards! - not downwards! Card lightly - avoid destroying the natural "crimp" in the staple! The object of the exercise is that the sheep's fleece looks tight and shaped, and not as if it has been dragged from the pond and hung up to dry!
More trimming shears
Keen folk start a collection and talk lovingly about "I won the Royal with these in 85!" . "Master trimmers" only look at the Hindes red handled sharp pointed ones straight and bent! You need both!
Shear holster (known as a "shear sheath")
Worn on the belt and prevents you stabbing yourself to death - accidentally!
Leather halters
Once you have stood in a line up where all but you had leather halters on their sheep you will rush to our website to order yours! Its called "following fashion!"
Stain remover
Essential to have handy! Saved the day for many! You would be amazed at what those sheep do at night! Removes even the worst of stains without washing the sheep's' fleece.
White chalk
Help remove/hide/whiten up all those nasty "blemishes" which threaten to spoil your big moment!
Black Magic spray
If you have slightly brown rear legs (Your sheep - not you) and strictly speaking they should be black as in the Suffolk breed, most "on the ball" judges will quickly spot the difference (You know when they do - cos they stop right behind your sheep - stare at it whilst you perspire! - then give you a "sad" rather knowing look and move on to lovingly admire the bloke next to you (his sheep - not him!)
Now Black Magic changes all that!
The night before the show, armed with copies of the Sun or other quality newspaper and a large roll of masking tape, you mask up parts of the sheep's body you do not wish to accidentally cover in black. With your sheep shed resembles that of a spray shop at the Mercedes car factory, like a true master car body painter you start spraying with a vengeance! In a flash you are turning out sheep with the blackest legs to be seen in years! Cannot be detected and lasts for weeks! Every time a winner!
Don't think you are the first or by any means the last that will be "touching up" this show season!
Showing sheep is definitely fun!
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