Fitting is Critical and I need help with fitting my kids calves

Not sure if I should post this in the Big Show or in the Wanted forum:

My son is starting his second year of showing and my daughter is starting her first year of showing calves.  Last year we were all excited to start showing cattle and went to at least one show a month in Oklahoma.  We were pretty successful but normally we were pretty stressed out because my wife and I aren't good at fitting.  I know we could have done better if we had someone with experience preparing/fitting our calves the day of the show.  I have tried to learn but I stink at it.  My wife is a beautician and I know she could be trained to fit legs and she is interested in learning how to do this.  Now that it is show season again, we are ready to hit the road but need some help.  If you or if you know of someone located in central oklahoma that would like to go to some calf shows with a nice family, fit some good/sound calves that are well mannered/broke, possibly teach us to fit legs and get paid for it, please PM me.      

Sambosu said:

Not sure if I should post this in the Big Show or in the Wanted forum:

My son is starting his second year of showing and my daughter is starting her first year of showing calves.  Last year we were all excited to start showing cattle and went to at least one show a month in Oklahoma.  We were pretty successful but normally we were pretty stressed out because my wife and I aren't good at fitting.  I know we could have done better if we had someone with experience preparing/fitting our calves the day of the show.  I have tried to learn but I stink at it.  My wife is a beautician and I know she could be trained to fit legs and she is interested in learning how to do this.  Now that it is show season again, we are ready to hit the road but need some help.  If you or if you know of someone located in central oklahoma that would like to go to some calf shows with a nice family, fit some good/sound calves that are well mannered/broke, possibly teach us to fit legs and get paid for it, please PM me.      

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I know this sounds crazy, but we Mr Stierwalts videos and side walk chalk. My sisters and i watched and watched the videos. We even did what Kirk did with chalk. We'd pull in the old show heifers from pasture and clip on them. With my one sister she tended to scalp them like she was prepping for surgery so old show heifers were safer...LOL. Over time we have become self sufficient and we continue  to learn. But we can go to a show and make our calves presentable.

I wish I were in Central OK I would definately be happy to do it...if you have any questions though feel free to let me know!

One of the biggest keys (in my opinion) to fitting lets, and learning to do so, is to have the hair well broke on them.  Of course I do not know your situation, but I have seen a lot of folks trying to pull and fit legs with improperly broken hair.  It makes the job much more challenging and the results less desirable. 

savaged said:

One of the biggest keys (in my opinion) to fitting lets, and learning to do so, is to have the hair well broke on them.   Of course I do not know your situation, but I have seen a lot of folks trying to pull and fit legs with improperly broken hair.  It makes the job much more challenging and the results less desirable.   

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Aboslutely, Positively Correct!  If you do the work properly every day at home, the Show Day fitting will be a snap.  That doesn't mean it happens overnight.  I would estimate the average time it takes to get really good is about 2 years.  Sambosu, please send me a PM giving me a little more information about your operation.  Are you buying Show Calves, etc.  I'm in Ada, and would love to help; been trying to adopt a family for about 10 years.  The problen is that I'm in Arkansas most weekends playing with our Grandkids.

savaged said:

One of the biggest keys (in my opinion) to fitting lets, and learning to do so, is to have the hair well broke on them.   Of course I do not know your situation, but I have seen a lot of folks trying to pull and fit legs with improperly broken hair.  It makes the job much more challenging and the results less desirable.   

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savaged is right. Hair MUST be trained to get the best results. Especially legs.  We use plenty of kleen sheen, roto brush and ice water on legs. Then blow,blow, blow, and then blow some more before,during and after. Your blower is your best friend. Keep their legs clean. Mud and manure are your worst enemies on leg hair.

MCC said:

savaged is right. Hair MUST be trained to get the best results. Especially legs.  We use plenty of kleen sheen, roto brush and ice water on legs. Then blow,blow, blow, and then blow some more before,during and after. Your blower is your best friend. Keep their legs clean. Mud and manure are your worst enemies on leg hair.

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I mildly disagree.  Brushing with a Rice Root brush will do a lot more good than just blowing.  Brushing, combined with Blowing is the best remedy.

AAOK said:

MCC said:

savaged is right. Hair MUST be trained to get the best results. Especially legs.  We use plenty of kleen sheen, roto brush and ice water on legs. Then blow,blow, blow, and then blow some more before,during and after. Your blower is your best friend. Keep their legs clean. Mud and manure are your worst enemies on leg hair.

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I mildly disagree.  Brushing with a Rice Root brush will do a lot more good than just blowing.  Brushing, combined with Blowing is the best remedy.

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You must have missed the roto brush part.

MCC said:

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You must have missed the roto brush part.

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I did miss the Roto Brush.  But, I still believe good old elbow grease beats a Roto Brush, hands down.  They are great on Show day to pull up the leg hair before fitting!

These guys are right - work that hair at home. It makes the calves and the kids easier to work with at the show. And when you finally find that fitter thats right for your family, he'll give you tips on things you can improve on. When you get them clipped up for the first show it gets easier from then on.

Sambosu, I hope that the conversation turning to "work at home" is not a negative.  I spent a lot more than two years when we started showing calves being mildly frustrated when we got to shows and I simply could not accomplish what some people seemed to make look kind of easy at times.

I would brush and brush, and it just seemed I could not get what I was after.  I learn more every year, but here are some things I have learned, at least from my perspective:

1.  You can get OK hair, including the legs, on most any calf if they are rinsed and brushed daily.
2.  You can get good hair with the above, and the right genetics.
3.  You can get great hair with all the above, and keeping them cool and dark.
4.  All along, steal, beg, and borrow ideas from anyone that knows fitting.  Buy the videos, study calves at shows, watch others.  Then when you get one with hair like a woolly mammoth, the fitting will be really fun and effective.

Finally and most important, you have to love it.  If you don't, there is no way on God's green earth you will give it the time it requires.  That's not a negative, just true.  However, if you can afford your own full time person to do the daily work and to fit too, then never mind the first 4 points  ;D

I agree with all above, while a blower is very important a rice root brush is your best friend, the more of them you wear out the better.  I actually like using a roto brush on the legs, while I agree I can part the hair better, etc, with just a rice root brush, a large part of why the brushing is so critical is to stimulate the hair follicles, stimulate follicles grow better and break better, and i can get much more of that done with a roto brush, that being said, I still probably use the good old manual powered rice root more, lol. 
Savaged is also correct, I believe you can put ok hair on just about any calf if your willing to put in enough work. But getting GREAT hair is a combination or work, genetics, and environment.  I tell clients and kids I help ALL the time, its not so much the amount of hair you have, its the quality of hair you have.  Many will disagree with me, but when I am fitting I would rather have one with an inch of good, quality, soft, well broken hair any day over one that has 3" of hair but was just thrown in a cooler and never saw a brush.  Fact of the matter is when you get to those big amounts of hair on a calf you are gonna clip a lot of it off anyway, so focus on quality not on quantity, but the good thing there is if you do what you need to do to have quality, well broken hair, you will naturally get some quantity with it.
Also it is true, you have to have a passion for doing this, it can be a long and monotanous process, so if you dont love it you will quickly get bored and begin to rush through it and just not do a good job, a healthy level of competitiveness doesnt hurt either.

Call Kirk Stierwalt and ask for a recommendation or just ask around at the shows (look for the guys/gals with the black hands and dirty knees).  Hire them to come to your place for the day and "teach" you how to do everything. ie. daily hair work, clipping, show day fitting, rinse out and the products they use.  Be sure they understand that this is a teaching day, this may take a couple of tries because some are better teachers than others and some will just come and work and not say a word.  Have a couple of calves haired up and ready to go (one you are showing and one for practice) The fitter demonstrates on the show calf and then kids work on practice calf side by side. If they live close you can break it up into a couple of days (clipping then fitting) because the day can get long. Then the most important part-PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Do not wait, start clipping everything on the place-bucket calves, dog, horse- you will be amazed at how fast you forget unless you use it.

We did this about everyother year to keep on top of the latest trends and always got some great pearls we could use. Also made some good money helping people in high school and college.

Good Luck.

Yeah you have to be dedicated...

Thanks for all the infomation.  I pride myself on making sure my kids calves are some of the tamest calves so they don't get hurt and to have good hair.  We also try to tie the calves up for at least 2 hours every evening. While they are tied up we comb and blow them out. We also wash them about once a week with some head and shoulders or tresemme shampoo.  (Still struggling with the leg hair but I noticed brushing has worked better than combing). We didn't have a cooler last year when we started showing so I put my sons OKC calf in our barn and had fans blowing on it every day from January 1 til mid March. It kept it's hair despite the warmer than normal temperatures. I will look into having someone teach us and/or get some videos.    (clapping)

Id love to help too but im in central kansas

Me and my brothers show steers quite a bit up north and we have had quite a few steers that have don quite well. Usually our calves have great hairy that is soft and nice to work with. this year though one of our best steers has undesirable hair. it is long on his body but shorter on his legs and it is coarse and lays flat often. it is also very straight. We do everything we usually do with our steers like rinse, brush, and blow the heck out of it but we were wondering if there were and sprays or conditioners or methods to get it to that nice soft desirable hair. I will attach a picture so you can get a better idea. Any help would be appreciated
Coleman

Sambosu said:

Not sure if I should post this in the Big Show or in the Wanted forum:

My son is starting his second year of showing and my daughter is starting her first year of showing calves.  Last year we were all excited to start showing cattle and went to at least one show a month in Oklahoma.  We were pretty successful but normally we were pretty stressed out because my wife and I aren't good at fitting.  I know we could have done better if we had someone with experience preparing/fitting our calves the day of the show.  I have tried to learn but I stink at it.  My wife is a beautician and I know she could be trained to fit legs and she is interested in learning how to do this.  Now that it is show season again, we are ready to hit the road but need some help.  If you or if you know of someone located in central oklahoma that would like to go to some calf shows with a nice family, fit some good/sound calves that are well mannered/broke, possibly teach us to fit legs and get paid for it, please PM me.      

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Got your PM.  I'll give you a call.