ShowRite

Experience is the best teacher when it comes to clipping, and the only way you are going to learn the technique is to practice on your animals long before they go to the fair. Make sure your animal is clean before you start clipping and insure that you have plenty of good light in order to see what you are doing when you start clipping. Don't try to clip your animal without a blocking chute.

Make sure that you have the right equipment (clippers) before you start. You will need flat heads with a standard 84AU blade for clipping hair tight; sheep heads with a 20 tooth goat comb (P7112) blade for clipping long hair and blending; and a small pair of clippers for final touches and tight clipping.

Approximately three weeks before the show, clip all hair that needs to be shorn close to the body, i.e. head, brisket and neck. This will allow hair to grow back before the fair and it will give your animal a neat appearance. Two to three days before the show, clip your calf's head again, to clean up the head and give a fresh appearance. Try not to make your lines too distinct; you want the calf to look neat and, at the same time, natural.

Body clipping is a time-consuming art that requires a certain amount of patience and skill. Body clipping will allow you to hid an animal's faults
and, at the same time, accentuate the strong points of your calf. You need to know the strong and weak points of your calf before you start body clipping and visualize how you can make you calf look its best on show day.

Body clipping generally takes two sessions, one just prior to leaving for the show and the second on show day. The majority of body clipping should be done at home, with just touch up work done on show day. Working from the front to the rear of the animal, following is a discussion on how an animal should be clipped.

Head and neck:

Trim closely to the skin, two to three weeks prior to the show using flat head clippers with standard 84AU blades going against the grain of the hair on the nose and forehead.
Clip down on the cheek and jaw and blend the hair in with the nose and forehead. Leave approximately one inch of hair on the poll, blended to a peak.
Two to three days before the show, clip the face again to give a fresh appearance.
Clip up on the brisket and neck to give a clean and neat appearance. This will make your calf look longer and more extended in the neck.
Shear down on the neck with your flat heads approximately 3 weeks prior to the show to allow for hair re-growth. Trim at a 45 degree angle from the top of the shoulder to the lower base of the shoulder. Blend in hair to make for a smooth junction between the neck and the shoulder.

Shoulder: The hair on the top of the shoulder is to be body clipped with a sheep head and blown forward to blend the shoulder in naturally, making for a smooth look to the shoulder.

Loin area and rear quarter:

The entire loin area and back should be trimmed flat on top with hair left on the loin edge, making your calf look thicker and wider topped.
Start with sheep heads and work at making your calf look as thick topped as possible, going outward toward the edge of the loin and then blending this in with the side hair to add dimension and width to the top.
Work your way back toward the hip; make your animal appear as square hipped as possible. This will make you leave hair longer in areas where the calf tends to drop off from hooks to pins.

Hip hair is very important in giving the animal an appearance of being "square rumped":

The area closest to the top of the tail is trimmed closely and in an outward motion, leaving most of the hair on the hindquarter edge. This adds dimension and thickness to the hindquarters.
Leave as much hair as possible on the rear quarter of your calf to add thickness in the rump area.
Hair should be pulled up and out to add dimension to the rear quarter, leaving hair longer on the lower quarter to express stifle muscle development.
By leaving the hair longer in this area, you will reduce the prominence of the hock also.
Hair in the twist can be shaped to give the desired effect of more muscle development.
Hair should be blended in on the belly to give a straight and deeper appearance. Leave hair long and blend to give a "boxy" appearance in the flank and rear belly area. This will make your calf look deeper bodied and have more capacity.
On steers, tightly trim around the sheath, but blend in so that your calf does not look dirty sheathed.

Rear leg:

The first think you should clip on the rear leg is the hock area. Tightly trim the area directly above and in front of the hock to make your calf look straighter legged. This is very important in making your calf look structurally correct. (Some discussion has been made in the show ring recently about how straight legged our cattle are, so do not make the cattle look post-legged.)
Once you have tightly trimmed the area in front of the hock, the outside area of the hock should be shaved down almost to the skin, in approximately a 3 inch area, to make the hock look tighter and smaller.
Use some light adhesive and split the leg hair, about 7/8 of the hair going to the front of the calf and 1/8 going to the rear. This should be done on the inside and outside of the leg to make the leg look straighter and more eye appealing. Much of this can be accomplished when you rinse your calves and train the hair, prior to clipping your claf.
Trim the longer hairs off of the rear leg and leave hair longer where they need to provide a straighter appearance.

Tail head and tail:

Extend the hair in the tail head area in order to make your calf look square and longer hipped.
Take your time on the tail head and make sure your animal looks as square as possible.
Use adhesive to get the tail head hair to stand in the desired manner and clip from the growth bone (rump) back to the hip in straight level
motions toward the back of the hip.
When clipping the tail, bob or trim the lower tail to give a natural look.
The tail from the tail head down to the switch should be shaved closely to a short "v", as this will make the animal look wider through the pins.
Trim the rump hair tightly on the back of the hip and go outward to gain the maximum rump width possible.
Blend the hair outward toward the outside of the hip and brush, blow or comb the hair out and up to give the best (most) possible dimension
to the rear quarters.