A broken jaw playing country rugby league led farmer Ross Thompson to get serious about shearing sheep in the northern New South Wales town of Inverell.
"I did some training there in Spain. It was only the year before that that village had seen someone shear a sheep that wasn't tied up," Mr Thompson said. They need to be in position ready to start at 7:30am sharp when the bell rings for the first of four "runs" of exactly two hours each."It's just the challenge of it. You can make out of it whatever you want. It's all about your attitude and when you turn up for the day, that's what you get out of it," Ms Kimm said.At the end of the day, each shearer's work is tallied and here they're paid $4.85 for each Merino ewe fleece.
It helped Ms Kimm set the first world record from a female shearer when she got through 358 Merino ewes in eight hours."I'd like to think that they'd take up the challenge ... I got a lot out of it personally through the journey. I'd love for other women to be able to take that on," Ms Kimm said.The wool from the 20,000 Merino ewes at Cavan Station will end up overseas in China or Italy.The best of it will be bought by the most exclusive fashion houses.
"It can be a major animal welfare issue if the sheep are not shorn on time, are more susceptible to parasites and flystrike." "It's hard work both physically and mentally. You'll find a lot of shearers, because they're away from home so much and away from some of their mates, they feel quite isolated," Ms Thompson said.