Farming
By Neale McQuistin
Messrs Craig Wilson Ltd sold 1,126 prime and cast sheep in Newton Stewart yesterday.
The 655 prime lambs at the sale were a nice show for quality and averaged 193p/kg. Again, well-fleshed handy weight lambs were easily sold with heavy and lean lambs hard to cash. The sale was topped at £95 or 211p/kg for a Texel. Following the national trend cast sheep were harder to sell this week, particularly over-fat types. Trade was topped at £95 for a Texel with Mules selling to £65 and Blackface ewes to £52 for a pen of 23.
C&D Auctions Ltd sold 56 cattle, 892 prime lambs and 638 cast sheep at their weekly sale of primestock in Dumfries yesterday.
Prime cattle sold to 238p/kg for a Limousin cross heifer, while the trade for OTM cattle was stronger this week – selling to £1,318 for a Simmental and to 177p for a Limousin.
Prime lambs that were well fleshed and under 45kg met keen competition whilst leaner lambs and heavyweights met limited demand.
Top prices were £104 for a heavy Texel and 222p/kg for lightweight lambs. There were 426 lambs in the 39kg to 45kg weight range which averaged 192p/kg.
All classes of cast sheep were steadier this week with a top price of £88 for a Texel. Caledonian Marts Ltd sold 1,254 store lambs and feeding ewes at their weekly sale at Stirling yesterday. All classes of lambs maintained recent high demand. Top price of the day was achieved by a pen of Beltex cross lambs at £80. Feeding ewes were also in demand and sold to £62 for a Suffolk cross and a Texel cross.
Messrs Craig Wilson Ltd sold 212 prime and cast cattle at Ayr on Tuesday.
Prime cattle were a plainer show this week and peaked at 246p/kg for a Limousin cross heifer or at £1,457 for another Limousin heifer. A total of 16 heifers averaged 222p or £1,231. Prime bullocks were topped at 236p or £1,380 for the same beast. The three bullocks at the sale averaged 232p or £1,289. Three young bulls sold to 196p for a Limousin and averaged 178p or £1,126.
In the rough ring all classes were easier to sell this week. Eight bulls peaked at £1,140 for a Limousin or 123p for a Friesian. Eighty-three cast beef cows sold to £1,290 for a Simmental or 160p for a Blonde. Eighty cast dairy cattle peaked at £1,080 or 129p/kg for a Friesian. Sixteen OTM clean cattle sold to £1,190 for a Simmental bullock or 190p for a Saler heifer.
A small show of six dairy cattle was topped at £2,300 for a Holstein Friesian calved heifer with another not far behind at £2,250.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here