Sheila the lost sheep shorn for first time in six years

Sheila before and after her big hair cut. (Sky News)

A sheep rescued after six years in the Tasmanian wilderness has been shorn of her ginormous fleece.

Sheila the sheep was found beside dense forest near Hobart, where she had been since 2010.

Rescuer Peter Jones said: "It winked at me. Obviously it wasn't dead, so we pulled up and I tried to get it back on its feet.

"It was in the table drain, not a deep one, but a very narrow thing."

The sheep's wool weighed just over 46 pounds, which fell short of the Australian fleece record, held by Chris the sheep, whose fleece weighed in at 90 pounds last year.

Shearer John Alomes said: "The wool was very clotted, it was yellow up along her back line.

"So down her spine, she had a lot of vegetable matter in there, gumnuts, sticks, bark and that type of stuff, dirt even, and that's from living in the conditions she's been in."

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