2024-2025 Sheep Showing

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Margali

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Cassandra has decided she wants to do breeding sheep shows. Premium books aren't up yet but I gathered following list of shows from looking at result lists.
Potential Shows.PNG

So Cassandra's showing line up will be Oreo (March 2023), Socks (April 2024), and potentially a Dorper ewe lamb. Dominic will work with Coconut (April 2024) for showmanship.
 
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Cassandra and I took turns walking Oreo and Socks. We've figured out that a standard buckle halter gripped on underside of jaw give Cassandra best control. Socks did a lot of flopping and panicking. Hera was concerned and kept sniffing her.
 
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Baymule said:
Cassandra is a tiny petite little girl, but tougher than rawhide.
Click to expand...
Right now she is in full whine mode... "Oreo is too strong". All three kids helped train sheep. Dominic's wether to be go first lesson on halters. Painted Peggy is VERY unhappy because I've decided I'm going to try showing her in Open classes. Might as well since she's in the small pen eating her head off.

Cassandra is signed up for Showmanship Clinic on Friday May 31st and show June 1st. It is a production class so we need to make a record book on Oreo and Socks. Currently researching what goes into it.
 
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I am not certain what sort of project book they want to see, but most organizations - 4-H, FFA, Grange Youth - have similar record book requirements. The thing to remember is that all these youth organizations were originally used to teach farm youth how to be better farmers. Record keeping is very important to farmers to help with the bottom line of profit and loss.

I judged 4-H Record Books at County and State level for quite a few years. To me Record Books were great experiences for the kids, and by the end of their participation in 4-H from early ages to 18, these books are some of our family's most prized possessions. They contain stories in the children's own handwriting from grade 1 through typewritten/computer stories in high school senior year. They also contain a pictorial record of the children from Grade 1 school pix through different projects, showmanship, leadership skills, etc. when they graduated from high school. Wonderful memories for the family. These record keeping exercises helped them in math, writing, and organization skills. It really helped with writing their essays for college entrance exams too.

Here are some things to include in the Project Book.

For a first year in the project her record will be lighter than later on. Since it is a production class though she needs to include certain things in a more businesslike manner than just a couple pix of her with her sheep. The best photos are those showing her doing something with the sheep - i.e. feeding, grooming, trimming hooves, vaccinating, tagging lambs, banding wethers, cleaning pens, etc. In the case of tagging, vaccinating, banding, etc. she can be holding a lamb while you tag it, pulling up the required amount of vaccine into the syringe, etc. Since she is a small girl, these things would be consistent with age and experience while you actually do the muscle work. The pictures should be legibly captioned in the records.

When writing the story of her experiences with her sheep begin with the first visit to Baymule, and what she learned. Tell the story of how she got her sheep, what she does with them, and future plans for her sheep. Have Cassandra write what she earned from breeder Baymule. Write about putting up fencing and getting stall ready for purchased sheep. If you have pix of this be sure to attach one or two. Then purchase of Oreo, amount paid, time spent to pick her up, etc. Also show time spent talking to breeder and what she learned. More pix the better with legible descriptive short captions. If they are scoring her on her record book, she does not need to be too wordy, but should try to show as much work done as possible. As well as costs and earning.

Cassandra can write her story with her sheep, and attach just a couple pix, or do a picture story of Cassandra doing the above work using captions to tell the story. Pictures of practicing showmanship, in shows, etc. are all good to put in the project record book because it shows the time and amount of work she is putting into her project, as well as what she has learned. You can download 4-H record book pages that will have this set up and she can just enter everything.

Attach accounting pages showing money spent on feed, equipment, show entry fees. Show any money earned from prize money at shows, sales of lambs she produced, any sheep related work she does for others, etc., and prizes she has won at shows, even ribbons. She should show the shows entered, time spent getting animals ready for shows, practicing showmanship, any seminars or training sessions she goes to, etc.

The production story should show how much the project animal cost to purchase, keep, show, breed, and raise the young. If she sells the lambs, show the money received and use that to show any profit or loss. Any awards won at shows (ribbons too) should be shown as earnings. Remember to mention experience learned as profit. Show amount of feed Oreo eats, either pasture time or hay fed and any grain etc. She should show how much it costs to keep her on annual basis.

Expense/Income Example:
Date Item Expense Income xxx Sheep (name, sex, purpose) $
xxx Hay, #lbs. or bales, type $
xxx Feed or grain lbs. $
xxx Halter $
xxx Grooming equipment, hoof trimmers $
xxx Entry fees $ 1st pl.
xxx Lambs born - 2 ram lambs $300

Labor Example:
Date Work done # hours
XXXXX Cleaned pens, fed and watered xxx daily
XXXXX Trimmed feet (name sheep) xxx hours
XXXXX Practiced showmanship xxx hours
XXXXX Groomed for show xxx hours
XXXXX Showed sheep at --- placed 1st xxx hours
XXXXX Vaccinated ewes & rams xxx hours
XXXXX Ewes to ram (list ewes' names and ram) xxx hours
XXXXX Lambs born, checked sex, health, nursing xxx hours
XXXXX Vaccinated & tagged lambs. xxx hours

Seems like a lot, but once you have the first template worked out, you just add to it each year. It does get easier.

Our middle son won the State Record Book competition on Dairy, competed with his small dairy goat herd against kids whose families owned commercial dairies. The prize was a $1000 savings bond which he used towards college.
 
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