More helpful animal practical exam tips from the not-so-experienced.

Horses
Catch horse. (This time you CAN pick a nice one.)
Tie quick release knot. Make sure!
Cross tie horse to the correct buckles on the halter.
Put on nose twitch.
Put on bull bit. Check to see strap NOT twisted! Mine was. -_-
If bored try to figure out the breed and age of the horse from the brands and teeth, oh, listening to the other examinees get examined helps too.
Tell the colour of the horse.
Pick up both fore and hind feet and pick them out. I think I cleaned them out like a whistle.
Tell points of the horse. He asked loins, fetlock, knee and pastern for me.
Know where and what and when the infundibulum and dental star happens. I didn't know!
Don't mix up when Galvayne's groove happens. I did! I sort of got confused when the brand said she was 15 but it didn't look like it from the teeth.
Know what a curry comb, body brush and DANDY brush is. I couldn't say the name of the dandy brush but at least I knew what it was for. Sniff.
I think I stuffed up the most for the easiest species.

Sheep
Know how to lift sheep in the 4 different ways. I got asked 3 in total. I think getting us to do the shearer's method would not be very nice.
Condition score, age, weigh. Coolness, I said 35kg, it was 32! Yay! Oh yeah, most of the sheep were small, all the better for us then.
Pick out a certain sheep. I had to get a 2 tooth, female mulesed sheep. What I did was look for the most obvious naked tail first. Then looked at the ears for the sex. Finally, if a sheep had both characteristics I chose a smaller sized one because those would be younger I reckoned. Figures I was right.
Then the one to one with Kim. Got the breeds right. Phew. Merino, border leicester and dorper. He asked what a waybill was. In retrospect I should have said more. O well. Then he asked what a crossbred was. I remembered crossbred WOOL was anything other than merino wool, so I told him that. And I said crossbred would be anything crossed with a merino. WRONG! 2 pure and distinct breeds...you know the drill.
Showed us equipment. Got that right. Ear tagger and drenching gun. The others were mulesing shears and wool shears.
Went to Helen next.
Got us to tip the sheep in the lift, then folding leg method. Was alright.
OH OH OH. KNOW which ram harness is which. Sire-sine is the cross strap one. May not have the benefit of reading the label. Some of them have fallen off already.
Had to put it on then Helen came over and said,"Think about what you are doing." O dear. I redid the straps, everything seemed fine then she said the back strap was too far forward. I told her I had a really small sheep and that if it had been bigger it would have fit farther back. KNOW what a ram harness is for. I knew, partially. I said it was for teaser rams to check if ewes are in estrus, then Helen says it can also be used on rams. Oh. No. = (
Oh she was asking the others about sheep feet. Go read up about it! I think the points of it, and the interdigital groove?...
I got asked to tie up 4 legs. Went well. Sam Burke got asked to tie his up in the pryor loop.
Then I had to choose a sheep to bleed. With NO blue mark on its nose. It was hard because almost all of them had marks and I wanted a big skinny sheep bacause the seniors said it would be easier to bleed. The first one I chose FLEW out of my hands. I never knew sheep could be so jumpy. The second one I chose was even worse. I was beginning to think I was in a bad counting sheep daydream. I figured 3rd time I had better get something even though Helen hadn't commented on anything yet so I caught a sheep and it tried to fly as well but I clipped its wings! Bwahahahahahaha. Anyway I was quite pleased with my blood collection. Raymond was next to me as well but I found the vein (nice vein, see, big skinny sheep) jabbed it all the way in (I think my angle was a little shallow) redirected and got a spurt, redirected and hit paydirt. Albeit slowly but surely. Helen said enough. The examiner holding the sheep for me said beautiful. And that was the end of that.
I think I only really stuffed up on the crossbred question. That's what I get for becoming a creature of the night (ie night mugger).

Less items per species is proportional to decreased likelihood of stuffing up.

Best to worst for me! Pigs, then sheep, then horses, then cattle. Groan.

Now down to mugging for saturday's paper (not yet finished with past year exam papers) and tuesday's paper (haven't even started studying for that one yet!).

How not to stuff up your farm animal practical. (Do it like I didn't do.) = )

Cows
Put on the halter properly. People can still get it upside down.
Check the teeth properly. Make sure you are not seeing more teeth than there should be to age it. (It's unnerving when the examiners say "Are you sure?").
Look at the WHOLE cow before condition scoring. What I thought was fat on the hip was the cow resting on its other side.
Get a light coloured cow so you can see where the previous examinee got blood (Thanks William!) (Oh wait you can't, they tell you which cow to go to).
Get a nice cow. (Oh wait you can't either. So there. = P)
Even better, get a MAD cow. Like I did. Same crazy murray grey/charolais (?). I ONLY occluded her jugular vein and she put BOTH feet on top of the head bail rails. They said," PULL IT OUT PULL IT OUT!" So I did. The examiner said my technique was correct, but I didn't even get to draw blood! I feel so incomplete without properly doing it. Didn't get my bloodlust fufilled...Speaking about blood! Oh nevermind...= P
Then out of pity for me probably, they asked me to do a quick release bowline on the rail. The rail? At first I heard "poll", weird place to do a knot. It's the lazy Aussie vowel again. I did it wrong, didn't quick release properly. Didn't for the life of me know why. They gave me two more chances...even did it on myself. Still didn't work! Then they showed me and said I didn't need to know how to do it till 4th year. So was it counted or not? Argh. They said I did well and told me not to look so shocked or worried.
Stand FAR away from the leg as possible when doing the dairyman's knot. Apparently I didn't stand far back enough.
My cow was WET, full of milk. Thanks cow.
Did I stuff up? Maybe.

Pigs
Pick a nice pig. O wait you can't. Again.
Keep trying. My noose kept slipping from the pig when I tried to mouth gag it. It was terrified of the gag for no rhyme or reason and would struggle like mad to get away from it and hence out of my beautiful noose. So Ross let me use the metal snare. Hook on so that the pig still has room to pull on it. AND PUSH THE PIG TO THE RAILS. The seniors were giving us wrong information initially I think.
No weighing for me. Thank God! 10% within is not really a lot to play with. I prayed for a big pig, I got even better!
Pick up weaners. Goodness they were heavy and Ross was slow to tell us to put them down.
Know the breeds! And crosses!
Make the pig walk in a circle around the perimeter of the pen with a pail on its head. DON"T bang your head in the centre table like William. Oops.
I was most happy with the pigs. I think.