The stage is set for five shearers to set a new World record in a unique day of lamb shearing barely three quarters of an hour from the heart of Auckland.
Dwindling sheep numbers mean organisers have had to bolster the target flock of ewe lambs with several hundred wethers, making it possibly the first record on mixed-sex lambs in New Zealand for more than 30 years.
John Fagan, one of eight judges appointed by the World Sheep Shearing Records Society to oversee the event, says the last he can recall was one of his own nine-hour solo lamb records about 1980.
That was about two years before the nationwide sheep flock hit its peak of 70.3 million, more than double the current ovine population of about 30 million.
Brothers Sam and Richard Welch will be joined by fellow shearers Angus Moore, Cole L’Huillier and Peter Totorewa for the five-stand record in which the gang will be hoping to shear over 3000 lambs in eight hours.
Shearing at Cashmore farms, off Kawakawa Orere Rd, east of Clevedon and inland from Kawakawa Bay near the entrance to the Firth of Thames, they start at 7am, and finish at 5pm.
The target is an otherwise unclaimed record, but it will be the biggest judged day’s shearing in New Zealand since 4188 lambs were shorn by six shearers in a nine-hour day in Southland almost nine years ago.
Society secretary Hugh McCarroll, who was this year honoured with the MNZM for services to shearing, agriculture and the community, said the shearers safely made it through the wool-weigh held yesterday afternoon (Monday) to ensure the lambs meet the rules.
“They are quite big lambs,” he said after a clip of 22.8kg was taken from a sample of 20 lambs, safely over the required 18kg and minimum average of 0.9kg each. Fine weather was forecast.
