A professional sheep shearer from Co Donegal has set a new world record for shearing lambs.
Over the course of nine hours, Ivan Scott from Kilmacrennan sheared 867 lambs, beating the previous record of 866 set by New Zealander Don King in 2007.
Despite being due to start on Friday in Cornwall, unfavourable weather conditions meant Mr Scott’s record attempt was delayed for a couple of days. But on Sunday, the Donegal man started shearing, beginning at 5am and continuing on until 5pm , stopping for breaks across the day.
Mr Scott said he had been preparing for the record attempt for a long time. He said he has broken other records in New Zealand but “this was the one I always dreamt about in my shearing career, I’ve worked towards this”.
In order for Mr Scott to break the record he had to shear 97 lambs per hour, which equates to roughly 30 to 40 seconds per animal. For the record to stand, the lambs had to be of a certain age and must have a wool weight above 0.9kg.
The day was spread out over the course of 12 hours across five sessions. The first session was for two hours beginning at 5am, but all the subsequent sessions were an hour and 45 minutes long with breaks being taken in between each.
Mr Scott said attempting a record such as this is very physically and mentally demanding and requires the “energy equivalent of [running]three marathons”.
It was not Mr Scott’s first world record this year. Last April, on RTÉ’s Big Week of Farm, he took the world record for fastest shearing of a sheep, setting the record at 37.9 seconds, 1.41 seconds faster than the previous record.
In June, he also took the record for most ewes sheared in a nine hour period. He sheared 820 ewes in that time, beating the old record of 483 set by Wexford man George Graham in 1997.
Mr Scott is a full-time sheep shearer. He moved to New Zealand when he was 21 and has been travelling around the world shearing sheep since then. While he still travels to New Zealand for three to four months out of the year, he is now based in Donegal.
When asked if he plans other records in the future, Mr Scott replied : “It’s probably the last one I’ve had my eyes on for the rest of the year.”