With their long horns and flowing coats, Highland Cows are born and bred to deal with the extreme weather conditions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland they have grazed since the sixth century.
Yet in the past two years, ‘heilan coos’ have become more and more noticeable in the Australian countryside thanks to a soaring demand and popularity Down Under.
It’s a demand that saw what is believed to be a new world record price for a heifer achieved in an online auction earlier this month.
A 14-month-old heifer, named Calmore of Bairnsley, was sold for $67,500 (£37,850) at the Bairnsley Highland Cattle Stud Stock Sale (Spring 2022) online auction on Sunday, November 13.
READ MORE: Highland cows: The big hairy beastie that’s good for the land and makes fine photies too
The winning bid is reported to have been made by a buyer in New South Wales, who intends to start a new fold.
Six heifers which were also offered and sold at the sale, which attracted nearly 2,000 ‘watchers’, averaged $38,533 (£21,600), which is also believed to be a world record for the breed.
Bairnsley Highland Cattle, which hosted the auction, have been breeding Highland cows at their fold in Sunbury, located around 30 miles outside Melbourne, since 1996. They have had a significant influence on the breed in Australia, with 19 out of the last 28 Australian Highland Cattle Society's National Show Grand Champion cows and bulls having their sire or dam as a Bairnsley animal.
The sale came amid a huge increase in demand for the breed in the past 12 months which has produced a string of new breed record prices for bulls and registered females sold at auction in Australia.
Commenting on the sale, Bairnsley Highland Cattle stud principal Glen Hastie said he has never seen such demand for the historic breed.
“It’s out of this world for us, it’s definitely going to take care of our next batch of imported genetics and set us up a shed,” Mr Hastie said.
“She’s a very nice heifer, out of a bull and a cow that we bred. However, we did not expect this kind of price. The average price across all six lots was $38,000 and in the previous sale we had six months ago the average price was $13,000, which we thought was incredible at the time.”
Mr Hastie concluded that the sale of the 14-month-old heifer Calmore of Bairnsley was a world-record price at auction having contacted other breeders both in Scotland and the United States.
He said that the Scottish breeder, a former chairman of the Highland Cattle Society, was “astounded” by the price fetched.
“It certainly was a record for us and a record for Australia for the breed. I have made some contacts with people in Scotland and North America and it's roughly double the previous records for each of those countries.
"I contacted a Scottish breeder that we import from, he is an ex-president of the Highland cattle society over there and he was astounded”, he added.
Highland cattle were first imported into Australia by Scottish migrants in the middle of the 19th century, with artificial breeding being the major tool for the development of the breed Down Under.
Interest in the breed grew further in the 1980s, aided by the appearance of Highland cattle across Australian media, and has peaked with the advent of social media, with their photographic appearance seeing the animals earning the nickname of “the social media stars on the bush” Down Under.
Another reason for the dramatic rise both in interest towards the breed, and prices achieved at auction sales within the Australian livestock market as a result, has been down to the covid pandemic.
Post-pandemic, more Australians who are not experienced farmers have swapped city life to relocate to regional areas, buying smaller landholdings.
Not having to rely on income and in looking for a breed that is low maintenance, these landowners, alongside wineries and B&B owners, are purchasing “trendy” Highland cattle as an attraction.
A recognisable symbol of Scottish Agriculture across the world, Highland Cows are one of the oldest registered breeds of cattle in the world and one of Britain's oldest, most distinctive and best-known breeds.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel