Stand aside Shrek. Bow down Big Ben. An Australian sheep is now the shear-leader of the woolly pack.
Chris the sheep has broken world records after having 40.45kg of fleece trimmed in a hair-raising, life-saving surgery today.
Spotted by a bushwalker in the Mulligans Flats area near the NSW-ACT border, Chris was carrying such a heavy load that animal welfare experts feared he wouldn't make it through the summer.
He was brought into the RSPCA's Canberra facility and trimmed by champion shearer Ian Elkins, who answered the organisation's call for help.
Mr Elkins believes he cut seven years' worth of growth - double the sheep's body weight.
"It's amazing it's survived all these years out in the wild," he told AAP.
The record-breaking weigh-in confirmed Chris had more than bleaten - so to speak - the current record set by New Zealand's Big Ben, found to be carrying nearly 29 kilograms of wool in 2014.
Big Ben dethroned a fellow Kiwi, Otago icon Shrek (27kg fleece in 2004), who gained national celebrity in his home nation, meeting then Prime Minister Helen Clark and becoming the subject of several children's books before his death in 2011.
"It's unlike anything I've ever seen," Mr Elkins said.
Chris was feeling fine after his makeover.
"He's gone from a very shy sheep to one that wants cuddles now," RSPCA ACT boss Tammy Ven Dange said.
"He's looking really good right now."
But Chris wasn't available for post-cut photos.
"He might be drugged up still," Ms Ven Dange joked.
As for his future, Chris is up for adoption, but it will be on a first-in-first-served basis - and someone's already reserved him.
And his fleece? It would probably end up in a museum, Mr Elkins reckoned.
- additional reporting Reuters
