Shearing four days before show

[EmsoffLambs]

Our fair has a pretty strict rule that kids have to do all their own work at the fair, which is all well and good except when you have a nine year old that needs to slick his own lamb. Therefore, I would like to shear his lambs at home before we take them to the show. The lambs have to be there Monday and they don't show until Thursday. When would be the best time to shear under this scenario and with what blades? I was thinking super surgicals on Monday before we leave? Or would it be better to do it even a couple days earlier than that? Or just stick with the surgicals three prior to the show? Lambs are all pretty good hided.

[PBCL]

Sunday or Monday before you leave, keep them blanketed!

[ARLambs]

I think surgicals prior to leaving for the fair would be fine.  Lamb camp we went to taught that lambs are being shown with a bit more wool than in years past.  They reccommended surgicals 3-4days out or fines day before show.

[ARLambs]

Definately need to stay blanketed and keep hide conditioned

[PeteM]

Surgicals with heavy lotion and blanketed. 

[FittersOutpost]

For the past few years we have been shearing 4 days prior to show with surgical blades.

[coondawg]

we pretty much do the same here for Tx Majors 4 days out condition and blanket them. 

[EmsoffLambs]

Perfect. Sounds like I'm all set then. Thanks! I feel like such a newbie asking these questions. I've been breeding for many years, but this is our first year that my son is old enough to show, so the feeding/fitting aspect is all pretty new to us. I know the basics but trying to figure out all the finer aspects of getting that extra edge.

[shadowran]

Ems depending on the lamb we have sheared ahead of time with supers and washed twice and sheared twice they looked good and we washed and brushed at fair, but saying that we have strict rules as well but every year I have newbies 9 year olds shear their lands with Star Listers made for little hands sure I clean them up a lit if needed or just point out a few places they needed to clean up all fun and learning

[EmsoffLambs]

I've thought about buying some Stars for the kids to use. Just one more expense though and I've already got two sets of Premiers... Maybe I need to just break down and get them. We just got an 11 year old foster daughter that's showing too, so maybe it's time.

[lamluvr]

We had similar situation for our fair, load in on Monday by noon, but our sheep show was Wednesday afternoon.  We would shear them all with super surgicals Sunday, that seemed just right.  Keep them conditioned really well.  Love Revive for that.  I don't think you will be disappointed with the Stars for little hands. 

[EmsoffLambs]

Just bought Stars off Ebay. Hopefully they'll be able to handle them more easily and do a bit themselves.

[Don Drewry]

When my kids were that age we had a set of Star clippers and they were able to clip the lambs themselves.  For a few years they'd do 85 to 95% of the clipping and I'd do parts they missed. Somewhere around age 12 dad would be come incompetent to touch their lambs with clippers and they'd insist on doing it all themselves.  After about 5 years, one day the Star clippers basically disintegrated as they fell apart in lots of pieces.  By then the kids were big enough to use the Premier clippers and we just used them.