Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Jefferson: Day 1 (9/9)

Okie dokie, Friday. Becky Utech couldn't make it, and so she graciously gave me her spot (you rock!) to the judges clinic. This is where Alan & Kate (our judges who came over from the UK to judge this show!) gave us all a course in judging our rams, something they take more seriously over in the UK.

Here Garrett is sitting with his ram White Pine Caiphas AI, as our specimen to observe how the judges evaluated him.


Here Kate is talking about the fluke shaped tails of the Shetlands and how important they are in judging a pure Shetland. If you look under the tail, it is always a V shape. Cool, huh?

One of the forms, these are the big 5. If they don't pass one of these, they generally don't pass the assessment.
Kate showing how to feel the teeth on the pad of a sheep.

Garrett feeling in another position, as sometimes they jut their jaw outward when you pull their heads up.
We all kinda got a kick out of this, but it's a good question :)

Kate showing the spiral of the horns on Caiphas.


Intent Garrett....


Innocent Garrett? Nah. :)
It's all in the hips...It's all in the hips...lol


Feelin' the back...Feelin his chest/lungs area....


Showin that they want wool up on the poll, cheeks and even some as far as wanting it all the way from the back of the head through the horns.
Alan getting some words in about length in the back, I believe. I have the whole thing on tape recorder, I should really download that one of these days. Probably need a computer upgrade first. *sigh* Sometime after Christmas maybe....
At the end of the clinic, we all got a certificate saying we could actually judge things like county fairs and stuff, cool huh? It was all very educational. I still gotta get copies of the papers to Becky though, just been kinda busy....

And afterwards, I had to go get my dose of cute and go see the newborn barn! No black faced babies this year :(




Here's mom trying to halter train one of our newest Shetlands, White Pine Saigon.
Alice grazing.
Wendy grazing...




"I'm keeping an eye on you...."
"I GIVE UP!" hehehe

2 comments:

Kelly said...

This is great Rayna!!!

Teresa said...

Very interesting! There is so much to sheep that I never knew as a kid with a couple meat sheep! Those babies are adorable!