A shearing gang of four young women from different parts of New Zealand are getting set to create a new world record. The goal? Shear more than 2000 sheep in 9 hours.
“We’re doing a four stand nine hour strong wool lambs record for women, it’s the first time there’s ever been a four stand women’s record,” says Sarah Higgins.
“We’re basically just going to shear our hearts for the day, the goal is to get over 2000,” says team mate Natalya Rangiawha.
That means they’ll look to shear around 500 each, so they’ve been putting in the training and nutrition to get in shape.
“There’s a lot of work in your hips in shearing, so strengthing your hips and quads and glutes is quite important,” says Higgins.
“Shearing 300 ewes in a day is like running a marathon, that’s 42km, so a nine hour day on lambs, shearing 500 a day, will be the same,” says Amy Silcock, also part of the team.
They’ve all got a few years shearing experience behind them and are learning what they can off the boys.
“I love competing against the boys like it’s a bonus haha,” says Rangiawha.
“I’ve always been a bit of a tom boy, played rugby I love competing againt the boys and it’s even better when you beat them and they hate it.”
When the big day comes they’ll be joined by team-mate Megan Whitehead.
“It would be such an achievement and hopefully it would push us to do even bigger records.”
“Hopefully other girls can look at it, and be like, yeah, we wanna do that one day, but not too soon because we want to hold it for a few years haha,” says Silcock.
The record will begin at 5am, 23 January at Waihi Pukawa Station, not far from Turangi.