A North Cornwall farmer has smashed the world record for sheep-shearing during a gruelling nine-hour session which was streamed across the globe.
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The Donegal man is no stranger to breaking records, after he beat the Guinness World Records title for the fastest time to shear a sheep, on the opening episode of Big Week on the Farm earlier this year.
Smith broke the previous nine-hour sheep shearing record of 721 which was set by Rodney Sutton in 2007.
“This challenge has taken a lot of preparation, and he has now set a new bench mark for shearers throughout the world. When it was set at 721 ten years ago there were people who wondered if it would ever be broken again”, he said.
The shearing started at 5am and finished at 5pm, a standard woolshed day including hour-long breaks for breakfast and lunch, and a half-hour each for morning and afternoon tea.
That averages out at shearing one sheep every 44 seconds.
Smith’s will be the first of two World record attempts at Trefrank Farm as Irish shearer Ivan Scott is tackling the nine-hour lambs record on Friday.
He will be the first to attempt a world shearing record in the Northern Hemisphere.
Pippa Smith said her husband had been on a strict diet since returning from a stint shearing in New Zealand in mid-January. He has in the past won a Golden Shears open plate competition.
“No coffee, no beer”, she said.
He was flanked by his two brothers and a nutritionist, and a three-man global panel of judges ensured the quality of the shearing as he got through an impressive 80 sheep an hour.
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Monitored tests during one Merino shearing record in Australia in 2005 showed a shearer losing a litre of fluid an hour and 4kg in body mass during a day in which temperatures hit 30deg. Runs three was on par with 142 sheep while he sheared 141 sheep in the penultimate run. Total for 9 hours: 731.
