Today we prepared for dairy showmanship classes and best fitted classes. Showmanship is one of my favorite parts of the show. It’s when the students shine. All of their homework comes to light. All of the days of halter breaking, walking, tying, feeding, and having a relationship with their animal shows up in the showmanship arena.
In the middle of the day, I got a call from a friend to go check on some sick kids (goat babies) in the sheep and goat barn. While I was there, I had to walk around and take some pictures to share with everyone. Goats are great! Sheep are fun too, they just don’t thrive in south Louisiana, so we don’t have as many sheep as we do goats.
In the show barn, you will find animals with grazing muzzles. These are loose fitting, but simply keep the animal safe from eating strings, cords, strange feed, shavings, and whatever else they can put in their mouths. They are a bit like toddlers.
Multiple births are very common in small ruminants. They commonly have twins or triplets. I know someone who had a sheep give birth to SIX babies! Now of course mom can’t raise all of those, and some must be bottle fed.
Tomorrow is the actual dairy cow show, and I will try to take pictures of all the different types of dairy cows.
Dr Vet Sonya 