The Fall Show

Hampshire Ewes in the North Field by the Creek

“Watch where you’re going you clumsy old clod; step back and mind your own business!” The burly red-faced man in the crumpled hat and bib overalls angrily mutters these words right in my dad’s face.  My naïve fourteen year-old farm-boy mind is shocked by this rude reaction to Dad’s gentle bump. It’s early November 1947 and the scene is the weigh-in area for the market lamb competition at the Edmonton Annual Fall Livestock Show and Sale.

Dad’s entry in this market lamb class is just one of a number of sheep my brother Dick and I are
helping him select and get ready to compete in the show. The preparation begins on a crisp sunny afternoon about a week before the event.  For me, the excitement of a competition, the break from routine chores, and the chance to learn something new makes this task seem more like fun than work. We are herding the flock of two dozen black-faced Hampshires across the frost-crusted barnyard and into the poplar-rail twenty-foot-square corral. Our black and white border collie Prince helps by stealthily zig-zagging at their rear to keep them moving. From this group of mature matriarchal ewes, shyer twenty-month-old shearlings, and frisky spring ewe lambs and wethers, we are about to select the best of the lot and prepare them for the show.

Dad is instructing Dick and me about the ideal ovine conformation characteristics that the three of us are looking for. We begin with the market lamb category because it is the least complicated. The successful market lamb candidate will have a broad and well fleshed-out body, especially the back half that holds the more desirable cuts of meat. Although we all agree on the most suitable lamb I have mixed feelings about our choice.  It is a Hampshire-Southdown crossbred wether we bottle-fed when it was orphaned shortly after birth. We’d named him Pete (and his twin brother, Repeat) and fed him specially, making him very tame. Mixed feelings because I am proud he is the best, but sad because I know that even though the market lambs are returned to their owners after the show, they are in the form of chops and roasts. Later we learn from weight records that the meat we get back is not from Pete, allowing me to feel less guilty while savouring a lamb chop.

The criteria for the selection of purebred Hampshire ewes for breeding stock are more stringent. Eddying the two dozen animals around in the pen allows us to view them all as we seek the best qualified. When one of us is uncertain about what lies below the veiling fleece of a particular sheep we make a closer inspection. In my youthful exuberance I pounce on it, wrap my arms around its woolly neck, and with boot heels plowing through the half-thawed grimy ground, bring the skittish two-hundred-pound beast to a jerky halt against the pen’s wool burnished rails. Dad’s well-trained hands palpate the woolly body, neck to rump, confirming or amending our original impression. We look for a body type similar to that for the market lamb class, but also for other features: a broad chest indicating good heart and lung capacity, strong and straight legs, a broad head, not too short a neck, close fitting shoulders, straight back, broad loins, and wide rump. The breed requirements also have to be met: no wool over the eyes, no wool on the legs, and no black hairs in the wool.

Earlier Dad had registered to enter two mature ewes and two shearling ewes in the purebred competition. Now it is time to decide which ones to show. Our selection process first removes from the pen those that do not meet the breed requirements. Dick and I isolate these and, one by one, usher them out of the enclosure. It takes both of us, one guiding the beast out, and the other stemming the tide of woolly bodies that are determined to follow. A similar procedure follows to expel others with obvious conformational weaknesses. Since there is no potential “grand champion” in the pen, Dad decides which features should receive the most weight and chooses the two ewes in each class that are strongest in these. Each animal is identified by its ear tag; the two mature ewes are FRH 26U and FRH 2T, or 26U and 2T for short. By now our hands are well oiled from the greasy wool and we all reek (not unpleasantly for a sheep person) of that odeur de mouton that is a combination of wet dog and roasting mutton.

Grooming, which is our next task in preparation for the big show, serves two purposes. One is that a neatly trimmed appearance gives the judge a positive first impression that implies we are proud of what we are showing. The other is that it provides an opportunity to trim the wool in such a way that it masks the animal’s faults and emphasizes its good points. Dad uses a curry comb and carder to fluff up each ewe’s wool and then, with the snip, snip, snip of his hand shears, trims them neatly to look their best. He does not, however, trim to hide or emphasize certain features. To him this is an attempt to deceive that does not fit his values, and besides, the judges will handle the animals and, if they do their job, disregard the cosmetic work anyway. As a young teenager I feel differently; I want our sheep to look just as good in the show ring as everybody else’s. I argue that it is just part of making a good first impression, but Dad is not persuaded.

The day before the show our young neighbor, Roy Daly, pulls into the yard with his dad’s old grey 1935 Chev one-ton truck complete with its weathered wooden stock rack. The sheep trot uneasily around in the pen as he backs up to the loading chute.  We load the matronly 2T first. Both Dick and I put our shoulders to her reluctant rump and push her up the ramp and into the truck box. She is the alpha female so the others, true to their instincts, follow with little need for encouragement from us. They are delivered, unloaded, and penned in the Exhibition barn without incident. Dad’s ewes place in the top half of their classes with 26U earning a second place red ribbon.

Dad must have taught us well about what to look for in a sheep because later I win second prize in the junior judging competition at the show. I am proud of my accomplishment until my teacher sees my name in the Edmonton Journal and asks me to give an impromptu speech to the class about judging livestock. I get up in front of the class but am too shy to say a word so I stand quiet for a minute and then just sit down.

I am still perplexed as Dad and I walk along the sheep-barn aisle past the pens and away from the market lamb weigh-in area. I ask, “What was that all about? Why was he so mad at you? You apologized for bumping into him!” Dad clues me in to what happened, “As you know, the maximum weight for market lambs is 110 pounds because heavier animals have an unfair advantage. When that man’s lamb was being weighed I noticed his boot under the edge of the scale platform. To be sure of an accurate weight I bumped him just enough to make him move his foot. His lamb was overweight and was disqualified.”  I want to ask, “Why didn’t you just tell him to move his foot?” but I think I already know the answer. Dad wants everyone to play fair and respect the rules, and at the same time he doesn’t want to unduly embarrass the offender by openly accusing him of cheating in front of his fellow exhibitors gathered around the scale.

The Fall Livestock Show and Sale was a learning event for me. I learned how to judge a sheep and groom it for a competition. More importantly, I learned something about principled and compassionate behaviour from my dad.