How I live...Ewe betcha! I'M THE SHEEP WHISPERER

AS WELL AS BREAKING A GUINNESS WORLD RECORD FOR SHEARING, MARLBOROUGH BUSINESS OWNER SARAH HIGGINS, 28, WAS NAMED SUPREME WINNER AT THE 2020 NZI RURAL WOMEN NZ BUSINESS AWARDS

“Being good at my job simply comes from passion. I just love shearing! I’ve always been sporty and active, so it’s like a sport to me because it’s such a massive physical challenge. Since it’s physically hard, it becomes a mental challenge too because you’re trying to control a live animal and that can take a lot of patience.

My love for the woolsheds started at an early age. I grew up on a sheep and beef farm in Havelock, where my mum introduced me to working in the woolsheds like she had done when she was younger. I grew to love the environment and worked as a wool handler when I was at school.

By sixth form, I was working holidays and weekends and even trying to get days off to go work in there! Back then, crossbreed wool was suffering from a lack of marketing, so I did a Bachelor of Commerce in Agriculture, majoring in marketing at Lincoln University.

I worked for a company in Christchurch for six months after I graduated, but missed the sheds too much and didn’t enjoy office life.

Luckily, a friend in England called, needing a wool handler, so I accepted the job and went travelling for two years. It was completely different to New Zealand. There are no shearing sheds in England – you shear outside on the trailer and you’re doing little mobs, moving around all day. I got to see a lot of the countryside.