A record year of world sheep shearing records has ended with Lockhart shearer Nicki Guttler’s breaking of a new mark.
Guttler, who was third in a women’s event at the Golden Shears in Masterton in March 2024, shore 450 merino lambs in eight hours at Parkdale Merino Stud, near Dubbo – the 11th successful record bid in 2024.
It put 55 on top of the mark of 395 shorn by fellow Australian shearer Nikki Lyons in establishing a record for the category on November 16, also in NSW.
It is one of 42 men’s and women’s records, from solo to eight-stands, currently recognised by the World Sheep Shearing Records society and shorn in New Zealand, Australia, England and South Africa on different classes of adult sheep and lambs in the standard work days of eight or nine hours.
Two of the records set in 2024 were broken later in the year and Guttler’s 450 is one of 11 records in the solo eight-hours category, including a men’s merino lambs record of 624 set in West Australia in September 2023.
Starting at 6am, an hour earlier than most eight-hour record attempts, to avoid some of the worst of temperatures soaring to the high 30s later in the day, Guttler started with her best run of the day – 116 in the two hours to the morning break at 8am. She followed with runs of 112, 112 and 110 through to the end at 4pm.
Guttler has harboured the dream of a World shearing record for several years, but it hasn’t stopped her keeping-up appearances on the competition scene, in which she was 23rd of 54 on the less-familiar strong wool ewes of the Golden Shears nine months ago.
Having been working for contractors Prime Shearing and Abraham Shearing in Wairarapa, where the Golden Shears have been held annually for more than 60 years, Guttler was second of just four women in the event.
It included beating former New Zealand lower-grades number one-ranked shearer Laura Bradley, who later won the women’s event.
Nicki first shore in New Zealand in June 2019, for New Zealand merino shearing legend and former World record holder and national circuit champion Dion Morrell, based out of Lawrence, in Otago.
The following March she “ducked over” for the Golden shears in 2020, doing a pre-Shears school focusing on competition shearing and finished 14th in the Intermediate class.
Nicki said the shearing industry is slowly but surely modernising shed facilities. Some still lacked clean running water and clean bathrooms but the situation was improving as time goes by and this was only increasing with the current shearer shortage.
“Most contractors work really hard to get the health and safety standards up to scratch for their shearers. The shearing shortage we’re having at the moment is helping us make a stand for respecting the shearers that we have,” she said.
Nicki’s personal shearing record is 301 head of cross bred lambs. Nicki achieved this record shearing beside her boyfriend, Connor Price, with whom she is currently working and travelling now in Tasmania.
This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 23 January 2025.
