What does "tight hinded" mean in reference to show lambs?

You’re a classy lady and the only explanation I have is crude.

I found ads for the product that use that term, but no explanation. The “clean” is pretty self explanatory, and I’m guessing that the rest of it is a reference to keeping the pelt/fleece compacted and neat (?).

(My only knowledge of elk honey is the idiot that intentionally smeared it on himself to attract a bull elk and got attacked. The whitetail buck kicked his ass, an elk probably would’ve killed hm. Although I did enjoy the fact that his wife talked about how terrifying the experience was, and yet she kept filming.)

Ha!! It’s a term that has to do with judging: Really tight hided lambs won’t have very many wrinkles

Oh, damn, wait – that’s hided, not hinded. I got too excited about my “hind find”.

@syz Perhaps there is a typo in that document because these sentences seem to make sense.

“The skin should be tight without any wrinkles.
· It should be thin and tight to the touch.
· Really tight hided lambs won’t have very many wrinkles; they will be
bald or will not have much hair on their ears, head or around the eyes.
· Tight hided lambs may also lose wool around their bellies or shoulders.”

Perhaps the tube stops the lamb from growing wool?

The proper wording is tight hided. It is a misspelling.

What I don’t understand is what would put you off from buying a product that was offered for sale and which you wanted – for whatever reason. You don’t have to say, “The folks back home will never believe this!” In fact, you don’t have to say anything at all about it, right? Hell, you probably could have bought a set of spurs and… well, not “a bullet”, I suppose, but a box of ‘em. Pass them out to your friends as party favors or stocking stuffers at Christmas.

I was just at the county fair this week and saw almost all of the lambs and sheep wearing those things. They are like spanx for the lambs. When I asked what they were for, I was told to keep them clean and sometimes warm since they were just shorn. They shear them quite close so that their form and muscles are more readily seen.
Now I wish I would have stayed for the judging of the lambs and sheep. I left after the feeder pigs were judged. I now know a lot more about pigs than I ever thought I needed to know

Where I live, they sell both lamb tubes and a variety of “honeys” to attract game and “urines” to deter varmints. If you ever decide you can’t live without a lamb tube, let me know . . . (can probably get you one with the lamb still inside . . . .).

“Tight hided” makes sense. Thanks, @bkcunningham, @syz, and @Bellatrix. Having no frame of reference, I wouldn’t have thought of it.

What strikes me as odd is that all the references I found to lamb tubes used this exact same description in full. Wouldn’t you think somebody would have noticed the error while copying it? That’s what made me think it was intentional.

@CWOTUS, I didn’t really have a strong desire to own it—it was just an impulse. What I really wanted to buy was one spur. For show-and-tell purposes (look what I found at a gas station convenience store in Montana), one would have been enough. But there was no way I could pretend that I was just, say, replacing one I’d lost. And there were some pretty serious-looking customers that I wouldn’t have cared to antagonize. So I contented myself with making notes in my trip journal.

The boxes of bullets didn’t even say “bullets” on them. They just had a bunch of numbers and codes. I had to stare at several shelves full of them for maybe a minute before I realized what they were. Obviously I was not the intended customer.

@Jeruba You are so articulate and hearing your description of these things unfamiliar to you intrigues me as these are familiar items to me. Keep going! I want to hear more about your observations of the unusual as I have the same experiences visiting big cities (how do they handle trash collection in high-rise buildings, for example). The variety of human daily living experience is one of my favorite things to explore.

Usually bullets (and shells) are kept behind the counter and are collected up for your purchase by the employee of the store so the boxes usually show only the manufacturer (e.g., Winchester) and the gauge/caliber of the ammunition in the box. I have never seen a box that actually says “bullets” on the end of the box (usually all you can see when they are all neatly stacked on the shelves behind the counter).

And, depending on the size of the shop, the employee carries the ammunition and any gun purchases to the counter area where you pay for them. These are not typically items they let you put in your cart.

As for another interesting ovine (sheep) fact, female sheep are called ewes and male sheep are called wethers. A castrated male often has a bell placed around his neck to lead the flock (bellwether). Because you can hear where he is by the bell, you can know where the flock is. This is why we use the term bellwether to describe something we can predict but cannot yet see.

Ah, so that explains the name of Connecticut’s second town: “Wethersfield”.

I love learning from you all too @Kayak8.

Thanks for your comments, @Kayak8. I did know about sheep and wethers and bellwethers; it’s the sort of thing you’re apt to run across in 18th- and 19th-century novels.

I’m heartily in favor of reminders of the origins of metaphorical expressions, though. That helps us to understand them better and even spell them right. For instance, if people understood what it means to give free rein to a horse, maybe they would stop spelling it “free reign,” which doesn’t actually mean anything at all, although it seems to.

Bits of my recent travel experience are sure to pop out in Q’s and A’s here and there, but probably nothing systematic. I was struck by how very alien certain parts of the country seemed, both in environment and in culture (and I think the two are inseparable). There were even places where I said “Seeing this, I can sort of understand why the folks around here vote the way they do.” Feeling the breadth and scale of it, and in some places the sheer emptiness, mile by mile in a car made a profound impression on me. My mind seemed to stretch just by trying to take in the vastness. “O beautiful for spacious skies…” has a new meaning for me now.

I just talked to a friend who raises lambs for 4H. She told me they use the lamb tubes mostly to keep the flies from biting the lambs. They shear them so close that the flies can very easily bite their skin.