• You need to start by teaching your calf what the halter is. There are two ways to accomplish this. The first way is to place the halter (with a rope attached) on the calf and allow the calf to drag the halter for a few days. By doing this, the calf will learn what the halter is by stepping on it. Another way to halter break the calf is by tying the calf at a natural position to a pole or wall allowing about 12 inches of halter slack. You should check your calf every 15 to 20 minutes when tying the calf for the first few days to make sure that the calf does not injure itself in any way.
• After a few days, the calf will become accustomed to the halter. This is a good time to teach the calf to lead. Start slowly with your calf and don’t jerk the calf around when you are starting the halter breaking process. Leading your calf and talking to him in a calm voice will put your calf more at ease and make the calf unafraid of you and the halter breaking process. When removing the halter from the calf, do it slowly and, once again, use a calm voice when releasing the calf.
• After about a week, when your calf has become accustomed to the halter, start tying the calf with its head up and its feet squarely underneath him. This practice will make for muscle development and teach the calf how to stand when you are in the show ring. Start with about a 15 to 30 minute session, gradually increasing the time over a week’s period to a duration of 60 minutes at a time.

Brushing and touching the calf and talking to your calf in a soothing voice will calm your calf. Playing a radio in the barn will allow your calf to become accustomed to noise and human voices, further calming the calf.

Start brushing your calf with a rice root brush, as this practice will accustom your calf to the handling it will later receive as you continue to prepare your animal for the show ring. You may need to put your calf in a fitting chute to brush him. This will allow your calf to become accustomed to the fitting chute and train him for later on in the show season.The most important thing to remember when halter breaking and taming your calf down, is to do so in a calm manner, never raising your voice or
injuring your calf. If you do raise your voice or injure him, he will associate the pain with you and his attitude toward you will be less than desirable.
You must continue to build a good relationship with your animal.Growing and training hair is imperative if you expect to make your calf look its best on show day. Hair can and does hide a multitude of faults in the structure of an animal and hair is a very necessary part of a successful project. The best way to grow hair is to brush your calf every chance you get. Keeping your calf in a dark place during the day will decrease the amount of daylight and promote hair growth. Also, keeping calves under fans and misters will lower the temperature of the room which further promotes hair growth.Washing and rinsing your calf everyday is also a very big part of hair growth and stimulation. Show calves shouldn’t be washed more than once or twice a week as too much washing will dry out the hair and skin. Make sure that you get all of the soap out of your calf’s hair when rinsing. Calves should be rinsed at least once a day and, preferably, twice to promote hair growth and manageability. Calves with dry hair should be sprayed with products such as Rag Oil, Final touch or Final Bloom. These products should blown into the hair, prior to washing. Using this practice will increase the "bloom" or "pop" to the hair and help train the hair the way you want it to lay on show day.

On rinse days, check your calf’s hair condition after blowing it dry and, if needed, use a product such as Revive to keep hair clean and loose. Blow your calf completely dry and then spray on the Revive, working it into the hair until it stands up or lays in the proper manner.Clipping cattle is an art that is mastered by few showmen across the country. The key ingredient to a successful clipping job is to know your calf’s
strong and weak points, taking care to accentuate the strong points and use hair and clipping techniques to hide the weaknesses in your calf. One
of the most important factors in a successful clip job is to realize that all animals shouldn’t be clipped the same way.

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.

Removing show products from your calf after the show . . . Several products are available to remove show products from your calf after the show, including: Hocus-Pocus, Unfit or a combination of alcohol and Purple Oil. Wash your calf, blow him out and replace the oils lost in the fitting process with Revive, Show Bloom or the product of your choice. Healthy hair is hard to keep and only hard work and diligence on your part will keep your calf’s hair in proper condition.