PSU Block and Bridle's 101st Little International Livestock Show

I like cows. They are my favorite. So when I get the opportunity to show livestock, I choose cows. Unfortunately, beef heifer practices for the Little I show were Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. I have shop from 4-7 on Tuesdays and Thursdays...kind of an important class. Needless to say, I would only be able to go on Wednesday nights and one night a week to break an Angus heifer is not enough. (There might be a little bias there as I am a Shorthorn breeder and have never had good luck with Angus-except Little I 2017.)

But I found out that lamb practices were Monday, Wednesday and Friday so I could do that! There's one catch...I hate sheep. Well, it's a love/hate relationship. They are okay but ask anyone and they will say sheep are stupid. That's why they are not my favorite. But I gotta do what I gotta do to get in that show ring. And we only have a month to work with them as the show was Saturday April 14th.

The picture to the left was taken after she was washed. Even though it was hot, the blanket had to go on so she would stay clean. There were several fans on the pen of Little I lambs.

All of the lambs are ewes (girls) and I named mine Eeyore. She was a fairly good girl right from the start. Within the first week of practice, we were doing great and we were working on fine tuning some little things. Meanwhile, almost everyone else was still working on setting their lamb up.

But...there was a slight bump in Eeyore and I's "Journey to Stardom." It was the Monday after St. Patrick's Day and we went about our way as normal except that Eeyore had an attitude problem. I joked that the students who lived at the barns partied with the animals over the weekend and that Eeyore was still feeling it. I got her to calm down and we were fine until practice was cancelled one day. It was about 5 days that she went without a practice and when we got back to it, she again had an attitude problem. She wasn't herself and I was really annoyed with her. We just need consistency in her attitude, then we will be okay.

 

On Wednesday, we put the lambs on the stands where we could start fitting them. Eeyore was fine for the first 15 or so minutes then started freaking out when I was about done. She was choking herself and falling off of the stand. She ended up rolling/falling off onto the floor. Eeyore got up and was fine that time. One of the superintendents of the sheep division was trimming hooves and we were trying to get Eeyore to stand still. Eventually, we decided to try to put her back on the stand. BAD. IDEA. She completely flipped out, was jumping like crazy and we couldn't get the head piece to lower quick enough or untie her quick enough. Finally (in a bad way), she rolled off, AGAIN, and was huffing and puffing when she decided to stand up. I got Eeyore to calm down and I even set her up several times then sat there and bonded with her.

Thursday was wash day. We got her on the stand where she behaved really well considering our previous stand experience. Everything was fine that day. I blew her dry, fluffed and clipped her leg wool.



















Flash forward to Saturday Show Day. WHAT. A. BRAT. These pictures explain how the day went. After I was done showing, I stayed around and watched the rest of the show. The outcome was not what I expected but that was okay.

One thing I learned was patience. If you have some patience, you will get farther in life. Also, no matter how much you practice the animals' attitude can be completely different when you get to the show. Eeyore was an angel once I got her to calm down at every practice while it took until the last time in the show ring for her to calm down on Saturday.