The Shear4Blair 24-hour Shear-a-thon raised about $130,000 for the Southland Charity Hospital and donations were still coming in, event organiser Jared Manihera said.
The event was at Wohelo Station woolshed in Moa Flat on Waitangi weekend
It was named after Winton man Blair Vining, who died of bowel cancer in 2019, after calling for cancer care to be equitable for all New Zealanders.
More than 10,000 sheep were shorn at the "awesome" event, Mr Manihera said.
Shear-a-thon participant Cole Wells, of Roxburgh, sheared 1435 lambs in 24 hours.
Before picking up his handpiece, he had set himself a target of shearing 1000 sheep.
"I shore a lot more than I anticipated, so I’m very happy with the result."
Smashing his goal took a mental and physical toll.
After he sheared his final sheep, he pushed it through the chute, drenched in sweat, his eyes closed and was overcome with emotion.
"I was absolutely shattered. I had to push through a lot of pain to get to the end."
Mr Wells and Braydon Clifford, of Waikaka, David Gower, of Alexandra, and Eru Weeds, of Roxburgh, started the first of 12 two-hour runs at 6am on Sunday, finishing at 2pm on Monday.
Mr Wells, who owns contracting business Teviot Livestock Services, has more experience running a conveyor and tailing than shearing sheep.
"I’d be lucky if I shore for two or three weeks a year."
The other three men were experienced shearers.
The final shearing tally for Mr Weeds was 1891 sheep, Mr Gower sheared 1607 sheep and Mr Clifford sheared 1543 sheep.
Three other stands featured rotating shearers through the weekend to push the final tally shorn beyond the five figures final tally.
Mr Wells said it took him a couple of days for his body to recover before he could return to work.
He had trained for the event and was pleased with his physical and mental preparation but the back pain and cramps took hold in the early hours of Monday.
He credited the masseuses who were available to the shearers during breaks between runs for being physically able to continue for 24 hours.
"If it wasn’t for them I probably wouldn’t have made it to the end."
Mentally, he credited his friends for getting him through a mental "brick wall" he hit between 2am and 6am on the Monday.
"It was pretty draining but I had a good support team behind me which kept me going."
He coped mentally by only focusing on completing the current run and by avoiding thinking of the number of runs ahead of him.
A special moment was when Mr Vining’s wife, Melissa, gave the shearers certificates after they achieved the feat.
"It was awesome she was there."
Although the event was special, he vowed to never do a 24-hour shear-a-thon again.
"It’s definitely the last one for me."
He had done a similar shear-a-thon in the same woolshed in 2020 to raise money for West Otago farm manager Shaun Bradley, who was battling cancer.
Mr Bradley joined the men to shear sheep for the final run this year.
"It was only two years ago we were doing this event for him, so for him to turn around and be there and share that last two hours with us — that was awesome."
Mr Bradley sheared 50 sheep in the final run and emotions were running high.
He only learned how to shear a week before the event.
The physical and mental effort of the four men was mammoth, he said.
"You could see they were pushing through the pain in the last eight hours and they just soldiered on."
The effort of Mr Clifford, doing a 24-hour event for the first time after answering a call to replace an injured shearer six weeks earlier, was outstanding.
"He didn’t even look like he had worked up a sweat, he had such a good routine and paced himself perfectly — he absolutely styled it."
Mrs Vining, a Southland Charity Hospital board member, said there were no words to describe what this amazing group of people achieved.
“It was an awesome event. It was emotional to watch the shearers and their support crew working, especially as they closed in on, and surpassed, their 10,000th lamb.”
All of the shearers donated their wages to the hospital.
The money raised from this event will be used to buy medical equipment for the hospital, which is expected to open later this year.
