[Jacob-list] Showing lambs

[sbennett]

I've been showing Jacobs and most of the time there aren't any others 
(Southern Oregon). I showed last year lumped in with "other wool breeds" 
and this year at a Lamb Show, I was the only one with ANY wool breed 
sheep, so I had my own category. My experience so far is that if the 
judges know more about evaluating meat breeds, then the emphasis will be 
on conformation, not necessarily size (they may ask you when your animal 
was born), they'll be looking at meat potential (long loin, well 
developed leg muscles, etc). This type of show is how I learned to choose 
good body confirmation for evaluting my breeding stock.

 When you get lumped together in an "other wool breeds" category, the 
judges tend to look for which animal, they think, best represents their 
breed.

The meat breeds look really clean because they are sheared and bathed to 
show off their conformation. Wools breeds are expected to have enough 
wool to be able to evaluate it and the rules for show usually state; they 
should be fitted per their breed standard. We hold ours and hand pick any 
vegetable matter out of the fleece and fluff them up, wash their ears, 
horns and feet with a damp wash cloth, that is all.

Debbie Bennett
Feral Fibre

>
>I'm thinking about maybe showing Bravo in the Tennessee Valley Fair this
>year.  Has anyone shown at this fair and if so, are there usually other
>Jacobs there?  I wasn't able to go last year so I don't know how the Jacobs
>are shown--if there's a category for them or if they're lumped in with other
>colored sheep breeds.  I'm a little worried that he'll seem small next to
>other breeds of sheep, especially since he has a later birthday than sheep
>raised for show (I was able to see some of the DHs being shown last year,
>and the lambs looked HUGE and CLEAN).
>
>Katherine