Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
pressure to wet down the animal. Place a small cube of mild hand soap —
about 1 inch (2.5 cm) square — in an old empty dish-soap or squirt jar (this
is part of the reuse, recycle, and reduce program), and fi ll with warm water.
Shake well, then let it set for an hour or so. Shake it again to mix the soap and
water, and begin applying evenly over the fl eece with the squirt top.
Rub in the soap mixture well. An old terry cloth towel cut into a square
works nicely. Make sure you get at those hard-to-hit spots, such as the belly
and the insides of the legs.
Now it's time to rinse. Get all the soap out of the fl eece or it will dry in a
weird, patchy manner that won't win you any awards. Again, light water pres-
sure is suffi cient for rinsing.
When you're done rinsing, remove the excess water with a clean round
currycomb. Let your animal air-dry until the fl eece is almost dry, and then
place a show blanket on to keep her from getting debris or dirt in her fl eece.
Sheep can be let out into a freshly bedded stall at this point to await fi nal
fi tting, which is usually done within an hour of when they enter the ring.
Final Fitting
The fi nal fi tting consists of trimming and carding, and carding and trimming.
This is like Fluffy's day at the beauty salon.
Since market lambs were sheared 2 weeks before, they should still be
pretty slick skinned. But if there are some spots where the shearer left a little
more than other spots, use your hand shears, or blades, to clip them even.
Some market lambs are shown with a “poodle cut.” If you plan to show
your lambs this way (and if the show allows it), tell the shearer not to clip
the hips, rump, or dock in his earlier shearing. During fi nal fi tting, poodle
PRESHOW CARDING
After trimming, use a number 2 or number 3 hand card to fl uff out
that fl eece; use a number 5 on the head. When carding, work from
back to front again, lifting and straightening the fi bers. You can't
overdo it. After you've carded the fi rst time (no, you're not done,
silly), do it again. The carding should make any long spots stand
out for more trimming. The whole trimming and carding process
may be repeated three or four times.
