2025 is proving to be a tough year for Australian shearers. From floods in NSW and Queensland to drought in Southern Australia, weather events are impacting wool outputs and therefore shearer’s livelihoods. 

Carol Mudford, the NSW/ACT winner of the 2025 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Awards, understands the challenges of the shearing industry more than most, and her organisation is uniquely positioned to help. 

Mudford is the founder of sHedway, a health promotion charity for suicide prevention and mental health in the shearing industry. She’s a registered nurse and shearer herself and wants more people in the wool industry to talk openly about their mental wellbeing.

Mudford says there is great joy in shearing, a profession that hasn’t changed much in the last century, and when the going is good it can be the best job in the world. 

“The satisfaction and the challenge are amazing. It’s a physical job where you knock off at the end of the day satisfied to see what you’ve done. The lifestyle is incredible – you get to travel the country and work with fun people. And when the music is pumping and the whole team is in flow that feeling can’t be beaten,” she says. 

But shearers and shed staff face challenges with job and income security. “We’re all casual and paid per sheep (usually around $4.20 a sheep) and while an experienced shearer will shear 150-200 sheep a day, the work isn’t consistent. We travel long distances across the country to find work and also have to spend an average of $6,000-$10,000 a year on shearing gear.” 

Adding to these challenges is the fact that shearing remains a male dominated industry (despite an increasing number of women taking up the handpiece in recent years), with a culture where feelings and mental health aren’t traditionally discussed. 

To break down some of those barriers, Mudford’s message is simple: “Let’s look after ourselves as well as a shearer looks after their shearing gear”.

“We know if we turn up to work with a dirty gear pot full of rusty cutters we can’t do our job. And if our gear isn’t running well, we’ll go to the experts for help. It should be the same for our mental health - when we’re the ones struggling we should feel confident to put our hand up and know where to go for the expert help.”

Mudford started sHedway in 2023 after the industry lost three shearers to suicide in one month – the same month she went from shearing fulltime to working as a mental health nurse in a rural suicide prevention program. She now travels the country with a growing team of sHedway representatives, holding sHedway stalls at shearing and wool handling events most weekends and running mental health and suicide prevention workshops for shearing schools and shearing teams. These include teaching a mental wellbeing ‘toolbox’. 

“SHED stands for ‘sleep, hydration, exercise and diet’,” says Mudford. “It’s the boring basics but it works. It’s the routine stuff we don’t necessarily want to do, but that will keep our wellbeing balanced. 

“Mental and physical wellbeing are two sides of the same coin and sometimes we need to look out for physical signs that we’re in a rough spot. For example, you might not be sleeping well, so do what you need to do to get your sleep back on track and this will have good flow on effects to everything else.

“And when your gear pot is overflowing and you’re struggling, it’s time to reach out to the experts for help.”

Importantly, she says people need to look out for signs of changed behaviour in their friends and colleagues – something that applies to any industry. Those signs could be different for everyone, but it’s all about noticing changes. For example, someone who is normally outgoing and friendly at the footy becomes cranky or withdrawn or stops showing up. 

“Keep an eye out on your mates. If we make it normal to talk about mental health and we take away the shame around it, then hopefully it becomes easier for people to put their hand up and go to the experts when they need.”

As the 2025 winner of the NSW/ACT AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award, Mudford won a $15,000 Westpac grant, which she is putting towards developing more resources and workshops to spread the message wider. 

“Our goal is to have a poster and brochure in every shearing shed in the country while continuing to take our toolbox talks nationwide. I want everyone in the shearing sheds to know where to go for the expert mental health help when needed, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity of the Rural Women’s Awards to see this mission continue.”

Congratulations to all the 2025 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award State and Territory Winners, supported by Platinum Sponsor Westpac.

If you need to speak to someone for crisis support or suicide intervention call Lifeline on 13 11 14.   

TIACS also offers free professional mental health counselling service for tradies, truckies, farmers and blue-collar workers and their families. Call or text TIACS on 0488 846 988.