A Te Kuiti shearer has set a world standard, clipping the fleece off 452 sheep in nine hours.

Despite having to battle mugginess and heat at the Otapawa Station woolshed in the in northern Wairarapa, Kerri-Jo Te Huia on Monday set the women's world record for shearing strong wool ewes.

Officially it's the first World Sheep Shearing Records Society record in the category, which hasn't had a gold standard since the current rules were established in 1983.

Shearing attempts are physically challenging work, with the sheep in Te Huia's attempt weighing between 65kg and 70kg each and giving up an average of 3.7kg of wool apiece - some more resistant to the idea than others.

Te Huia also had to battle with temperatures of 28C and overcast conditions most of the day.

The worked kicked off at 5am, with breaks for breakfast and lunch, finishing at 5pm and averaging just 70.9 seconds for each sheep to be caught, shorn and released throughout the day.

A previous women's ewe shearing record of 522 - set by Maureen Hyatt in 1982 - was set aside after the record standards were restructured the following year.

Te Huia also holds the record for shearing lambs in eight hours (507), which she set in 2012.

Meanwhile, in the men's, Southland shearer Leon Samuels will later this month try to beat the men's eight-hour ewes record of 644 set in England last July.

- NZ Newswire