Fitting & Grooming

What is fitting and grooming?

Fitting is an important part of your sheep project that begins well before fair. This includes all the hard work and many hours that go into your project such as training and exercising your lambs. Fitting is everything you do to make your animal look it’s best for the show. Grooming is normally done at home prior to taking your lamb to the fair. This includes washing, shearing/clipping, and trimming hooves. Remember that a successful project is a lot of hard work, but is also very rewarding when that hard work pays off!

Training & Exercising Your Lamb

• You need to train your lamb to lead on and off the halter and to brace and set up easily.

• To teach an animal to lead on the halter, start first by tying it up for a short time each day. When lambs are first tied up, they will show some resistance to the halter. Let them work it out on their own. Once they learn to calmly stand tied up and not fight the halter, start taking them on short walks. It is important to always remember to provide release for any positive progress. For example, if your lamb takes a step forward when you ask it to, give them a little slack in the rope for a few seconds. This is creating a positive learning environment for your lamb.

• Your lamb must also learn to walk off the halter. If your lamb decides not to move, apply pressure on the dock (tail) to move the lamb forward.

• Bracing is when your lamb is flexing his muscles so he will handle better to the judge. Further exercising gets your lamb in shape and fit.

  • Can be a simple 15 minute walk and/or bracing your lamb

  • A very simple exercise to help build muscle (especially in the leg and loin) is to find a hill/incline that is about 45 degrees. Place the front legs on level ground and gently place the lamb’s hind legs such that he is facing uphill. Make sure the lamb is not overly stretched. Use your hand to apply pressure to the brisket and have your lamb brace against you. Allow the head to drop a little, as this will work the muscles more. Hold for a count of 5-10 seconds and let the lamb rest. Try 5-10 “sets” of this activity. On the final set, let the lamb climb up to the top of the hill/incline.

  • Increase the duration of each set and decrease the number of sets. After a couple of weeks, your lamb should be able to hold that position for a minute or more and you should only be doing 4-5 sets. This is just a guideline!!

• Can also elevate feeders so the lamb has to stand with front legs on blocks to reach feed

Grooming Supplies

Grooming supplies can be very expensive. We recommend for first year members finding used cheap supplies or borrowing from other producers until you know for sure you are going to continue showing. Not all grooming supplies are a necessity, but some are rather handy.

• Clipper and shearer

  • Wahl Lister /Premier

    • Blades: typically use a surgical blade

    • Shearmaster

      • Blades: comb and cutter: typically use a 23 tooth comb

• Hoof trimmers

• Bathing supplies

  • Hose, soap, brush, rags

• Blankets or Slinkies

• Grooming Stand

Clipping/Shearing your market lamb/commercial ewe

• It is best to have your lambs sheared off prior to or after weigh in

  • A sheared lamb will grow better in the warm summer months

• If you are using a Lister or Premier type clipper, it works well to wash your lamb prior to clipping.

• If you are using a Shearmaster type shearer, it is best to have your lamb dry prior to clipping.

• Steps in clipping/shearing your lamb

  • Clip in long smooth strokes along the direction of the arrows in the picture below

  • Clip/shear parallel to the length of the body makes the lambs appear balances and longer

  • Do NOT clip below the knees and hocks-you want your lamb to appear to have an ample amount of bone

    • Clip the entire head as well to complete a uniform look from head to tail

• On breeds of lambs that have wool on the lower legs (Dorsets and Hampshires are examples), you will want to comb the hair/wool up and lightly spray with adhesive. This is called “boning” the legs to make your animal look more massive. Make sure you blend the area at the hock and knee so that there is no obvious transition from where you stopped clipping. You can use the small clippers to clip any areas that need it at this time.

  • Fitting your breeding sheep

• To get started you'll need a good set or two of sharp hand shears (it’s nice to have a long pair and a short pair), at least 2 cards, a curry comb, a grooming stand, and a lot of patience. To begin with start carding out the fibers by pushing the teeth of the card straight into the wool and lifting up and forward. This should make the wool stand up. It takes a while to get the motion just right but after a lot of practice you will be able to move the card in the way that works best for you. Card out the whole body, it will take some time, but it's the first step to a good fitting job.

• Once you have carded the whole body start with the top line of the animal and with the hand shears carefully clip small amounts of wool away starting at the front and moving to the back to make the back a nice, even, straight line. Work down the shoulder and then back towards the hip. Square the animal up and then carefully round the corners where the back blends into the side. When you get to the rear flank, clean out the wool there a little bit, but not take off so much as to make it look like the stomach is separate from the hip, just make a little definition between the parts.

• When you get around to the rear of the animal try not to trim too much off the hindquarter because that is an important part of the animal. At the base of the open area under the tail there is a line going down under the twist of the animal where the wool naturally separates. Card out the wool around this very well and then separate the wool on the line. To make the animal look wider, clip the wool on an angle so that the wool angles into the part or split. Try and trim some wool between the hind legs to widen the appearance, but if the animal lacks width on each leg don't trim it down much.

• Work around the other side of the animal, trying to achieve the same look as you created on the first side. Remember that the more carding you do the smoother the finished product will be.

• The front end of the animal is kind of tricky because it can drastically change the look of the animal both for better and for worse depending on how it's treated. If the animal has a heavy neck, try to take off more wool (especially if it's a ewe). Always blend the body parts together carefully, leaving a distinction but not making the animal look like a bunch of parts thrown together. Depending on the breed you may have some wool on the face to work with, in breeding animals generally shave the face of a Suffolk or other open faced breeds, but carefully fit the wool cap on a Hampshire or other wool cap breeds. Trim most of the hair off the ears to show a cleaner look. On breeds that have wool on the legs it is nice to carefully clean and card the wool and shape it to make the legs look uniformly well boned and straight.

  • Trimming your lamb’s hooves

• Securely hold the leg of the sheep

• Inspect the hoof and remove any mud, manure, or small stones between the walls of the hoof

• A rotten smell is usually indicative of foot rot

• Begin trimming around the perimeter of the hoof

• Avoid cutting off large chunks of hoof

• Stop at the first sign of pinkness

• A pink color means you are getting close to the foot blood supply

• The foot should be trimmed from the heel to the toe to remove excess growth of the "horny" portion of the hoof