Te Kūiti shearer Jack Fagan during the 2024 New Zealand Corriedale Shearing and Woolhandling Championships open final, which he won. Photo / Thomas Lambert
Te Kūiti shearer Jack Fagan during the 2024 New Zealand Corriedale Shearing and Woolhandling Championships open final, which he won. Photo / Thomas Lambert
Entries are pouring in for the Heartland Bank NZ Corriedale Shearing and Woolhandling Championships, a feature event of the 2025 Canterbury Royal Show on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, November 13-15, at the Christchurch Showgrounds.
Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association chairman Sir David Carter said the promising shearing competition entries reflectedthe huge jump this year in those for the various livestock groups, following the show gaining permanent “Royal” status.
“We’re absolutely thrilled with the entries – over 700 in the sheep section and around 380 each in the dairy cattle sections."
Carter said wool would be a special feature this year.
“We’re setting up a designated Wool Zone in a marquee that will stage fashion shows, along with a range of other exhibits, and this will be a natural complement to the shearing competitions going on nearby.
“We’re confident that, in conjunction with the Royal Agricultural Society, we’ll be staging a show that has bounced back, and then some, from the difficulties of the past few years, to become the pre-eminent A&P show in the country.”
Dave Brooker, co-chairman of the Corriedale Championships organising committee, said everything was set for the shearing competitions to confirm their place as one of the signature attractions of the show.
“Entries are certainly looking good, and we’re pleased to be able to have the same Corriedale sheep from Marble Point Station, Hanmer Springs, that we’ve had for the past six or eight championships,” he said.
“It means that the shearers can expect an even and predictable line of sheep showing up in the catching pens.”
The Heartland Bank NZ Corriedale Shearing and Woolhandling Championships are the third of the six-leg PGG Wrightson Mixed Breed Shearing Competition Circuit, with the final to be held at the Masterton Golden Shears in the first week of March next year.
The Golden Shears will also stage the 2026 World Shearing Championships.
This year, the Canterbury show in Christchurch will stick with the Thursday-to-Saturday format it adopted for the reduced event last year, one in which the wider show survived only thanks to a $5 million bailout from the Christchurch City Council, $4m of which has been stashed in a fund that has to be maintained at that level to finance future shows.
Carter noted the unique role the Corriedale breed had played in Canterbury history.
“The name Corriedale comes from the North Otago farm where James Little developed the breed by crossing fine wool merinos with English long-wool Lincoln and Leicester sheep in the late 1800s.
“He was setting out to create a dual-purpose sheep that could produce both meaty lambs for the newly-established frozen meat trade in Britain, and what we call mid-micron wool today, finer than strong wool but not as fine as fine wool.”
Carter said the Corriedale was the first new breed of sheep established in New Zealand, being officially sanctioned by the New Zealand Sheep Breeders Association in 1905, and it has since been taken up by farmers all around the world.
“It was just a short hop from the breed’s North Otago roots up to Canterbury, where it’s been the region’s signature wool type ever since.”
Strong wool prices
Strong wool prices have jumped from $3/kg or less last year to well over $4/kg this year.
This year’s Corriedale shearing competition comes in the upbeat environment of wool prices rising, and more sustainably than they’ve done in decades.
Mid-micron (22 to 31 microns) prices, which cover Corriedale wool, have shot up between 14% and 27% since last year, and fine wool (below 22 microns) has gone up even more dramatically, with one lot of ultra-fine 12.5 micron merino wool recently selling for an extraordinary $155/kg greasy.
Even strong wool prices have followed the trends of the finer wools, jumping from $3/kg – or less – last year, to well over $4/kg this year.
“Overall, the wool market is looking really buoyant, and with all the initiatives going into growing its market share here and overseas, the current prices look sustainable,” Carter said.
