Ram with the golden fleece sells for world record price
‘Superstar’ lamb fetches £367,500 at auction due to potential to sire hundreds of high-quality sheep
A GREAT set of legs, a beautiful head of hair and, to be honest, all the signs of being a bit of a goer ... Double Diamond, a six-month-old Texel lamb, has sold for a world record £367,500 at auction, such is its breeding potential.
A consortium of three farmers bought the ram at the Scottish National Texel sale in Lanark on Thursday.
Jeff Aiken, one of its members, who manages a farm of Texel sheep in Lancaster, told The Daily Telegraph that he had splashed out because the ram was a “superb animal” with great breeding potential due to characteristics, such as its legs, which indicate it will produce sheep with high-quality meat.
He said: “He is just tremendous – he has great top [wool], a great set of legs and is full of character.
“He has beautiful white hair, a black nose, a black teardrop [pattern under its eyes] and has a good earset [ear shape].”
Mr Aiken, 42, said Double Diamond would soon be busy doing what the ram does best.
“We have a good batch of sheep coming on, we were looking for something special to get in with them,” he said. “It is just an all over superb animal. It has great genetics, it is in the top one per cent of the breed.
“He was just a superstar, he was just the most correct animal. He is probably the most outstanding animal I have seen in a Texel breed in 20 years of farming.”
The farmer said the ram’s cosmetic traits, such as a jet black nose and welldefined ears, suggested it would also be a top performer at sheep shows.
“These are things that judges will like to see”, Mr Aiken said.
Double Diamond, which was sold by Charlie Boden, of the Sportsmans flock in Stockport, Cheshire, is an embryobred lamb of the Texel breed, and such is the animal’s potential prowess that it was placed in the top 1 per cent of the UK’S estimated breeding value index.
Bidding on Double Diamond started at £10,500, but after a brisk bidding war the ram finally went under the hammer for the record-breaking sum.
Mr Aiken will be using the ram to mate with sheep at his farm from next month.
The other buyers in the consortium – Alan Blackwood, of the Auldhouseburn flock, in Ayrshire, Scotland, and Jeff Teward, of New View Farm, Darlington – will use artificial insemination techniques to make the most of his potential.
Mr Aiken hopes Double Diamond will be able to father up to 300 lambs a year. He hopes to start the breeding programme as early as next week.
He said: “We hope we can sell rams for a good price next year. We just hope that he does a good job and we do get our money back. We are just looking to have successful farming with him, we hope everything goes all right.”
“I hope that he works well for the three flocks and that they get the same amount of money that I do.”
The previous world record price for a ram was £231,000 in 2009, when Deveronvale Perfection, owned by Graham
Morrison, sold at the same auction in Lanark. Deveronvale Perfection surpassed the previous record price of £122,000.
The Texel breed of sheep originated on the island of Texel, one of the Dutch Wadden Islands located off the northern coast of the Netherlands, and now dominates the British sheep industry, according to the Texel Sheep Society. Mr Aiken emphasised that he was one of only a few farmers in the country who could afford to spend so much on a single animal.
He said: “It is only a small amount of people that have that sort of money. It isn’t a reflection of the wider farming community.”
‘Probably the most outstanding animal I have seen in 20 years’