Hutchinson — Looking for a quick diet? Try 24 hours of shearing.

Two American sheep men participating in a 24-hour endurance sheep-shearing feat in July did the improbable.

Doug Rathke, 48-year-old Hutchinson sheep man, sheared 607 sheep in that 24-hour marathon. His shearing partner, 60-year-old Gavin McKerrow of Wisconsin sheared 486 sheep.

“And I also lost 18 pounds. It was a bit hot down there so even though my wife kept me nourished with special herbal energy drinks and high-energy foods, the workout really zapped me,” smiled a modest Rathke when interviewed at their 180-acre organic farm, Liberty Land & Livestock, about five miles west of Hutchinson. Rathke’s wife, Connie, is an herbalist and nutritionist.

Estacado Industries Inc., a lamb feeding operation near Dimmitt, Texas, provided the lambs and was the location for this event. Twenty volunteers assisted bringing the sheep to the two shearers, recorded the times for each shearer, monitored the sheep and handled the wool.

A nurse monitored the health of the shearers while an Extension agent ensured that the sheep were properly handled. Shearing Rambouillet-Suffolk cross lambs weighing 85 to 100 pounds, each lamb averaged just a little over 3 pounds wool.

Why such an event? To bring positive attention to shearing in the United States was Rathke’s primary motivation. He wasn’t so interested in sheep sheared in an hour, or even a 12-hour day but the idea of an endurance contest basically just to see how long a shearer could go really intrigued him.

He’d heard about a New Zealand shearer back in the 1980s who sheared from 1 p.m. to 1 p.m. the next day but only sheared for 18 hours of that 24-hour period. In this Texas event each shearer took a 15-minute break every two hours.

“It troubled me that I was hearing about shearing records being broken in other countries, yet nothing is being attempted in our country. We hope to get the ball rolling with U.S. shearers to see what kind of records we can achieve and get more young people interested in this profession,” said Rathke, who has sheared in several states, plus 15 countries, including Russia. He also instructs sheep shearing.

Both Rathke and McKerrow are participants in ASI’s Certified Sheep Shearer Program, which pledges their commitment to shearing in a manner that promotes wool quality and good animal husbandry.

An England firm provided the shearing machines, combs and cutters for this extraordinary event. Two U.S. wool companies, Groenewald Wool in Illinois and Mid States Wool of Hutchinson, Kan., helped sponsor the event and provided a wool grader to ensure the two participants were shearing to a certain quality.

Temperatures had been in the 100-plus F range but cooled to 97 F inside the tin shed as they sheared.

They started shearing 7 p.m. July 11 and sheared until 10:17 p.m. on July 12. During this marathon Rathke used up about 30 combs and about 100 cutters.

What kept these two guys going?

Rathke simply said, “it’s a mind game. Plus several guys that I have trained in shearing were down there to bring the sheep to me, take the wool away as I sheared, and share a few words now and then to boost me along.”

Indeed it was a mind game. He had pictures of his family, his granddad and his parents on a shed post right beside his shearing station.

Surprisingly, Rathke is the first in his family to get into wool and sheep production. He and his wife grow sheep now strictly for the retail market, selling between 800 and 1,000 lambs yearly. A Grove City facility slaughters and does some of the cutting and packaging of the various lamb cuts, but most is done right at the farm.

“We also sell a lot of whole carcasses into the Twin Cities market. Our selling point is grass-fed lamb and that is really starting to work with our customers,” Rathke said, emphasizing the higher vitamin and mineral content of grass-fed sheep.

Recognizing back fatigue as a shearer’s No. 1 challenge, Rathke used a special sling suspended around his chest that let him lean over as he sheared. He thinks this special sling was the “bit of technology” that provided the endurance for him to set his record.

He did stress the value of physical fitness. He works out routinely including lifting weights, stationary biking and special muscle stretching exercises.

Their 250-head Dorset ewe flock gets bred for year-round lambing to meet the year-round demands of their retail market.