Seriously shaggy sheep finds shearing saviour

A national shearing champion has been called in by the RSPCA to shear a heavily overgrown sheep found near Canberra, Australia. The animal was found and rescued by RSPCA staff on Wednesday after it was reported by a member of the public. But it is so woolly its life is at risk, as sheep can develop serious medical conditions if they are not regularly shorn.



That prompted calls from the RSPCA for shearers to come forward, and Wednesday afternoon four time Australian Shearing Championship winner Ian Elkins put his hand up for the job. Mr Elkins is based in Canberra and will shear the sheep on Thursday morning. "Ian Elkins was in touch with us just recently, and apparently he has won 110 open shearing competitions, so I think we have our man," RSPCA chief Tammy Ven Dange said.



Originally the RSPCA wanted to shear the animal immediatelly, so they could see if the sheep was injured under its fleece. "It'd be great to get someone here immediately so we can assess any serious medical conditions he might have as a result of this," Ms Ven Dange added. "It can actually make it impossible for them to go to the bathroom ... we don't know how bad the damage could be because this has been building for a while. There are so many things that could go wrong with this, we won't know though until we can properly shear him." Ms Ven Dange said while finding a shearer was good news, the sheep was not out of the woods yet.



"He has obviously not been around people in a very long time, and it's probably going to take a couple of goes before we get it all off him," she said. "He could go into shock during the shearing process tomorrow so we're going to sedate him to try and take some of that pressure off him." She said sheep were often found not shorn because they had lost their herds, but there was the chance the animal had been neglected. "If it was done deliberately, yes, it would be a cruelty case, but in many cases it's not, sometimes it's just a lost sheep, literally," she said. The RSPCA said it was not clear how long the sheep had gone without being shorn.

Update: The sheep has now been shorn. With photos.