Browse > Home / Farming, Rural / Super blade-shearing performance

Super blade-shearing performance

Posted on November 12, 2009, 3:03pm and updated on November 13, 2009 at 8:23 am

Blade shearing
John Nicholls (pictured) from Port Fairy shore 216 sheep with blade shears in an eight-hour shearing day at Edenhope last Friday.

Nicholls set out to blade shear 200 sheep over the normal shearing day from 7.30am to 5.30pm, with morning and afternoon smoko and an hour-long lunch break.

He passed the 200 estimate at 4.45pm, achieving an unofficial Australian record.

Nicholls started the day with some tougher sheep, but shore more than 50 in each run, with 57 in the third run, sharpening his blades after each sheep.

Local woolclasser Marjorie Carpenter cleared the board all day and others helped by either gathering the wool or sweeping the board.

Nicholls shore sheep owned by Wayne Brodie and Grantly Robertson.

Two certified shearing judges, Austin Grigg and Alan Edwards from Caramut, were present.

They kept an eye on the sheep that were shown and disallowed seven that were not included in the total of 216.

Despite warm conditions a steady crowd of people witnessed the effort, including a busload of hospital residents, St Malachy’s school children and quite a few “old guns”.

The shed was quiet as Nicholls shore without the aid of a shearing plant and listened to his iPod to stay focused.

The noise of the day increased during the fourth run as young shearer, Reagan Hamilton from Apsley, attempted to shear 30 lambs in 30 minutes.

Come 4pm, Hamilton set about his task with normal shearing equipment and was completing the 40th lamb when he was clocked off.

One lamb was shorn in just 31 seconds.

While this was happening, Nicholls kept quietly blade shearing until 5.30pm.

Nicholls and the current Australian blade shearing champion Jon Dalla from South Australia will travel to Wales for the World Shearing Titles in September next year.

The pair will also contest the Victorian Blade Shearing Titles at the Edenhope Show on November 28.

There will be open and intermediate events and they should provide a great spectacle for anyone watching.

  • Picture courtesy: Christine Bull Photography
Tags: , ,  

Comments

One Response to “Super blade-shearing performance”

  1. andrew sutton on November 14th, 2009 2:55 pm 1

    Congratulations on your acheivement Love to catch up sometime

Posting of new comments is currently disabled.