A local Yass woman is setting an eight-hour world record in sheep shearing this Saturday, but even more impressive is that there’s no record to break – Nikki Lyons is the first Australian woman to ever attempt it. This is history in the making.

Cheering her on is another pioneering female shearer, Jeanine Kimm from Binalong, who recently became the first Australian woman to set the eight-hour Merino ewe shearing record (Nikki is setting the Merino lamb record).

It’s hard to believe that with all the men’s shearing records, Australia has never had a female equivalent – until now. Gender equality still has a fair way to go in the shearing shed (although they do have equal pay).

Nikki shears about 200 sheep a day, Jeanine too, however both women rarely get a call back when phoning new contractors for work.

“Part of my ambition for doing this is almost like we need to prove to the world that we’re worthy of a stand,” Nikki said.

“For us women, if we ring around and leave a message on a contractor’s phone looking for some shearing work … we don’t get a call back. The men will get a call back before us.

“Jeanine is a woman who shears over 1,000 sheep every week, a solid worker but on the phone she sounds like this little mouse, she’s so petite. When she wanted to do some travelling, she could not get a start anywhere. “

So these two women are setting the record straight, literally.

“There’s more and more women but I think you would find those women working as rouseabouts [odd jobs], so they’ve dominated that area,” Nikki said. “When it comes to shearing, there’s more and more getting there and there’s more and more that are really good shearers too.”

It’s worth mentioning that Nikki is a 37-year-old mother of four and for the past 18 months, she’s been getting up at 4am to train for her world record.

“A record is something I’ve always wanted to do so it’s kind of now or never,” Nikki said. “I pretty much just woke up one day and thought, you know what, I can live with myself if I try and fail but I can’t if I just never try. I want to know.”

Nikki has been perfecting her shearing pattern in order to get “the maximum amount of wool off as possible in one blow”.

“It’s about where you’re placing those blows and getting a rhythm,” Nikki said. “You want it all to flow, you don’t want to be stopping and starting or having blows that hook up on the skin.”

During the gruelling eight hours, Nikki will have to be fast at changing her cutter and taking drink breaks. She said the ideal conditions are for the lambs to be warm and the shearers to be cool.

“The lambs being warmer will shear better as you’re heating up that grease or the lanolin in the wool,” Nikki said. “It’s easier to shear, it opens the wool up a bit better, there’s less resistance.”

Nikki isn’t sure what her final tally will be this Saturday, it all depends on the sheep. To qualify for a world record, Merino lambs need to cut one kilogram of wool each.

“I have to find something that would cut one kilo of wool while still remaining quite small because you don’t want your lamb to be too big because then that’s just more work on you,” she said. “And you don’t want them cutting too much wool because then you’re just handicapping yourself again. That’s more wool you’re taking off compared to someone else that might try and break your record in the future.”

Nikki has been shearing for about eight years and she said the money’s good but the work was seasonal. She wishes she could clear 200 sheep every day and, more importantly, she wants people to know her name.

“I think the men are definitely picked before women and it’s not until you’re heard of that someone might pick you.”

Nikki’s world record sheep shearing event is open to the public on Saturday 16 November, from 7:30am to 5:30pm at ‘Marilba’ 28626 Hume Highway, Bowning. There will be seating, a bouncy castle, fairy floss, popcorn, ice-cream and coffee vans, and a barbecue by Bowning Fire Brigade.