Farming
By Alec Ross
Bullocks at St Boswells yesterday averaged 284p/kg and sold to 330p/kg, while heifers averaged 294p/kg and sold to 334p/kg, and young bulls averaged 283p/kg and sold to 300p/kg.
Cast cows continued to meet with demand, averaging 201p/kg and selling to 246p/kg or £2,012/head. Lambs saw a big jump on the week at an average of 420p/kg and a peak of 465p/kg or £210/head, but hoggs dropped 9p on the week to average £190/head and sold to £240/head for Beltexes. And cast sheep averaged £130/head and sold to £230/head for Texel Ewes.
This season’s spring lamb trade got off to a flying start at Ayr with 44 averaging 411p/kg or £178/head and peaking at £220 or 438p/kg for Texels from Merrick.
A poorer show of hoggets averaged 360p/kg and sold to £222/head for Beltexes from Balcaimie and for a pen of the same breed from Rowanhill. Cast sheep peaked at £209 for Texel crosses from Lochlands with Blue Texels from Rowanhill leading the tips at £192. Rankinstone led the Blackies at £119, with Burnbank and Caprickhill leading the Scotch Mules at £161.
Prime beef-bred heifers at Lanark yesterday were largely unchanged at an average of 301p/kg and sold to 345p/kg for a Limousin, while bullocks fell by 5p on the week to an average of 288p/kg and sold to 292p/kg, again for a Limousin, and black and white bullocks dropped by the same amount to average 229p/kg and sold to 248p/kg for a Limousin cross.
Cast beef and dairy cows were mostly unchanged at 201p/kg and 165p/kg respectively, and hoggets jumped 10p on the week to average 382p/kg and sold to £252/head or 505p/kg. Cast ewes dropped by £4/head to average £131/head and sold to £278 for a Texel. And a large consignment of Blackie ewes sold to £108.
The annual Orkney Livestock Association show of grazing cattle took place yesterday in Kirkwall and was judged by Raymond Flaws of Nisthouse in Evie, and sponsored by Biobest Laboratories of Edinburgh. The champion and winner of the trophy was Gerry & Evelyn Wilson, Howequoy, for a 525kg Limousin cross steer that sold to £1,690. The champion heifer was a 395kg Limousin from Balfour Baillie that sold to £1,500 or 378p/kg.
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