Record Breaking Autumn Sales

Scott Donaldson, Managing Director at Harrison & Hetherington reports on an season of storms, landmark sales and the biggest ever Agri Expo:

 

“It’s been a wild Autumn for farming with a succession of mildly named storms – Babet, Ciaran and Debi – bringing gales and a huge amount of rain causing widespread devastating flooding and disruption across the country.

 

The Autumn Sales calendar has continued apace despite the weather, and creating it’s own highlights, particularly in the Swaledale world, with Arthur Slack’s £101,000 record, which has stood since 2002, being broken not once but twice at Kirkby Stephen during the ‘C’ District ram sales. The Richardsons from Ghyll House were first to do it on shearling day one when they hit £105,000, and then Peter Lightfoot, Gillside, did it again the next day. That was a memorable couple of days for everyone involved including H&H auctioneers James Little and Mark Richardson who shared the limelight.

 

The week before, Limousin bulls topped at 32,000 Guineas for Goldies Torpedo from Bruce Goldie, Townfoot, Dumfries, at the Annual British Limousin Cattle Society Autumn Sales held in Borderway.

 

On a commercial note, the suckled calf sale season has been in full swing, with producers enjoying a very buoyant trade with values between £150 and £200 up on the year at Carlisle, Kirkby Stephen and St Boswells, and with the renowned Middleton Calf Sale still to come. This demand is surely an indication of just how few quality suckler calves are available as the gradual reduction in the national suckler cow herd begins to bite.

 

Store cattle trade has been consistently ahead of last year, with finished cattle in the region of £100 better than the same time last year. Conversely, cast cow trade is running marginally behind last year’s values.

 

The slump in the price of liquid milk has had an impact on the dairy cattle trade with values of freshly calved heifers considerably less on the year, although we are optimistic that with a downturn in global production forecast, demand may improve, and with it we are hopeful that confidence will return.

 

The breeding sheep sales proved this to be an outstanding year for North of England Mule ewe lamb breeders, with the renowned Alston Moor Sale held at Lazonby in late September ringing the bell with an overall sale average of £130.65 for the 15,000 on offer. A fantastic result and testament to the hard work that goes in to breeding these quality breeding lambs on the Pennine and Lakeland Fells.

 

The grassy Autumn has kept store lamb buyers interested, and with prime lamb values holding up well, confidence is strong.

 

We believe that last month’s 16^th Borderway Agri Expo was the best attended Expo yet.  Borderway was buzzing from very early on in the day as all four ringsides filled up with visitors from all corners of the UK and Ireland.

 

To win any of the Championships at Expo is a huge achievement, whether it be the Commercial cattle, Baby beef, Aberdeen Angus, Beef Shorthorn, British Blue, Hereford or Simmental Pedigree Calf classes, the Prime sheep classes or the much-coveted Mule gimmer lamb class. The quality of the entries in every class was absolutely stunning, and the comments from all our judges about the standard of the livestock shown at Expo are testament to the stockmanship of our exhibitors.

 

It was great to see the Commercial Cattle Champion and Reserve both bred by their exhibitors, so many congratulations to the Dunlop family for winning the Overall Championship and Jennifer Hyslop the Reserve. I was delighted for see Jack Whiteford, of Tercrosset, won both the Overall Sheep Championship and Reserve at the grand old age of fourteen! What an achievement for the young man.

 

Our sincere thanks go to everyone who sponsored, exhibited, judged, brought a trade stand or came as a spectator, and of course not forgetting the entire H&H team. You all contribute to make Agri Expo the fantastic event that it is, and we are already looking forward to next year.

 

The clocks have changed and we’re moving well into winter now. Soon we’ll be preparing for the Christmas primestock shows, and the rings are humming with pedigree in lamb sheep sales throughout November and December. There’s always plenty going on at Borderway.”