After months of relentless physical training, organising and preparation, the day for a unique shearing record attempt in Southland is almost here.

On Thursday (January 14), Gore shearer Megan Whitehead, 24, will attempt to beat the solo women’s strongwool lamb shearing record of 648 lambs shorn in nine hours. 

The Gore community is abuzz with excitement as many in the shearing community prepare the Grant Brothers woolshed to house the world record attempt. 

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The record was set on November 27, 2007, by Waikato shearer Emily Welch and has since gone unchallenged for 13 years.

Before then, the previous record was 541 lambs shorn, set in 1989. 

Beating the world record would not be an easy feat at all, but if anyone could do it would be Miss Whitehead, says her father Quentin Whitehead. 

She is already the joint holder of one world record, the four-stand nine-hours women’s record of 2066 lambs, set in the central North Island on January 23, 2020. 

Miss Whitehead shore a personal best of 608, the best of the day, and at an average of 67.56 lambs an hour. The level she needs to attain on Thursday is 72 lambs an hour.

The central North Island competition was the second time the young shearer had shorn 600 sheep in a day, which Mr Whitehead said sparked the idea that Megan, given her demonstrated pace, could successfully take on the nine-hour lamb shearing record at Gore.

Now with over six months of preparation, exercising six days and week and $26,500 later, she is ready.

“I feel excited - and bit nervous,” she said.

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She said she began training six days at the gym mid-July, after a full days work shearing, and has cut alcohol, caffeine, sugar and bread from her diet.

Under the auspices of the World Sheep Shearing Records Society, there are standard rules, with five “runs” during the day, from 5am-7am, 8am-9.45am, 10.15am-noon, 1pm-2.45pm, and 3.15pm-5pm, separated by one-hour breakfast and lunch breaks, and half-hour morning and afternoon-tea breaks. 

For comparison sake, eight-hours records are done in four two-hour runs. Both 9hrs and 8hrs are standard working days in New Zealand woolsheds.

There will be five judges in total including one judge tuning in via-live-stream from Australia.

According to world record guidelines, there must be at least one international judge, but due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, the international judge could not attend the event in person. 

On Wednesday January 13, judges will oversee the shearing of 20 sample lambs, from which the average clip must be a minimum of 0.9k of wool per lamb for the attempt to go ahead. 

During the attempt the judges may remove individual sheep from the tally or even call the event off early if the quality is below the required standards

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In the record 13 years ago, Emily Welch shore 144 in the two hours before breakfast followed by successive 1hr 45min runs of 125, 123, 127, and 129.

Mr Whitehead said nine hours of shearing will a true test of stamina, saying to shear over 600 lambs a day has been compared to using the same amount of energy as “running back-to-back marathons.”

Megan’s world record attempt is at the Grant Brothers woolshed, 76 Croydon Bush Rd, Gore North starting at 5am and finishing at 5pm. 

Shearing crews urged to get on board with competitions

The call has gone out for shearing contractors and staff to get in behind shearing competitions as hard-working organisers struggle to get enough entries.

While many competitions take entries on the day, the shortage of pre-post entries is worrying long-time Northern Southland Community Shears secretary Patsy Shirley.

By early today (January 11), she had received no entries in the Junior, Intermediate or Senior shearing grades and just six for the Open grade, for the Shears’ national longwool shearing and woolhandling championships on Friday.

Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman and shearing legend Sir David Fagan is also worried.

Many people had put in years of work to keep shows going for the benefit of communities, shearers and woolhandlers. The competitions were where shearers and woolhandlers honed their skills and the shows needed more support or they could be lost, he said.

Sir David said with rural community numbers in decline there was a big need for competitors and supporters to also join competition committees.

The Northern Southland Shears is on Friday at Sleby's Woolshed at Lumsden and is part of a big three days of shearing in Southland starting in Gore on Thursday and moving to the Southland Shears at Winton on Saturday. There will also be night-time speedshear events at hotels in Otautau, Winton and Colac Bay.