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Scottish shearer tallies 2142 sheep in 50-hour charity effort

Sheep Central, July 12, 2017

Scottish shearer Grant Hurcomb. Picture – Sheena Ramsay.

A YOUNG Scottish shearer has shorn 2142 sheep in 50 hours in a world-first charity event, expending enough energy to run nearly 12 marathons.

Grant Hurcomb, 23, started his marathon Shear Endurance effort at 7pm on July 6 at High Balyett farm near Stranraer in south-west Scotland to raise money for two charities, Cancer Research U.K. and MND Scotland.

Grant’s mother was affected by cancer and he first undertook a 24-hour mammoth shear challenge in 2015, shearing 934 sheep to raise more than £21,000 for charity.

“Both charities are very close to my heart as I feel they contribute greatly to many families affected,” he said.

Taking a half-hour break every two hours, with one-hour breaks 24 hours into the event and 12 hours later, Hurcomb averaged more than 54.2 sheep an hour in almost 40 hours on the board.

As of 2pm today, according to the JustGiving Shear Endurance website page, he had raised more than £7160 pounds. Sheep Central has been told Grant looked at making his endurance shearing event an official record but the cost of doing this put him off because he wanted to raise as much money as possible for the two charities.

Statistics released by Shear Endurance include that Grant caught and dragged out 129,249 kg of sheep, walking almost 100,000 steps and covering more than 100 kilometres. The sheep shorn averaged 60.34kg liveweight.

It was estimated the shearer burned 31,429 calories in 50 hours. With an average runner estimated to burn 2600 calories during a marathon, this meant Grant expended enough energy to complete 11.9 marathons. The young farmer started shearing when he was 13 years old.

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