Imported bloodlines key as Cavan breeder shatters ram price record

David Argue’s January 2019-born ram nets €7,500 to smash 16-year Charollais mark he credits trip to Scotland to buy successful stock ram’s dam, reports Martin Ryan and

Until a few years ago, David Argue’s Rockdale flock was relatively unknown, but it has now shattered the alltime price record for a Charollais bred in this country.

January 2019-born Rockdale Vespasian, bred in his small Co Cavan pedigree flock, sold for €7,500 at the Irish Charollais Sheep Society premier show and sale at Tullow Mart, shattering the previous mark of €5,500, which had stood since 2004.

The sale catalogue described Vespasian as “our best lamb to date out of a ewe that bred lambs to sell for up to €3,500 and claim a red rosette at the RHS”.

After the liveliest round of bidding of the day, the ram was knocked down to William McAllister and Iain Craig for their flocks in Northern Ireland by auctioneer George Candler, with a round of applause from the ringside.

David’s success has been underpinned by hard culling and the expertise to identify bloodlines to enhance the pedigree.

David, who holds down a full-time off-farm job as a Teagasc drystock business and technology advisor, keeps a flock of 35 Charollais ewes alongside a commercial flock and a calf to beef suckler herd of continentals on the family farm at Doohasson, Drung.

Since the Charollais were introduced a decade ago, he has developed an exceptional breeding line which has gone from success to success over the past three years since he brought in a stock ram from Scotland, Loanhead Scotsman.

“I am surely delighted over the moon,” says David of Vespasian’s record sale. “I knew he was a good ram but I didn’t think that he was going to make that sort of money.

“We were delighted with how Scotsman bred for us the first year. Then we called over to Scotland to visit the Loanhead flock. I was a long-time admirer of their sheep and had planned to call to see Scotsman’s mother. I was very impressed by her and eventually I bought her, costing me a good few bob.

“She was a lovely sheep, really the type that suited our flock. She was a beautiful quality ewe. She had bred a ewe lamb that was placed first at the Royal Highland Show and bred numberous amount of stock rams in Northern Ireland and Ireland and we felt she was going to do well.

“We got her home and she was carrying two lambs, a ram lamb that we sold to a pedigree breeder in Co Monaghan and a ewe lamb that we kept for ourself.

“We flushed her and used Rhaeadr Prince (sire) and bred five lambs, one ewe and four ram lambs

and the €7,500 ram was one of them.”

David is keeping the ewe and sold the ram lambs to breeders in Ireland.

“We really like that ewe. She is as long as a train with a powerful back, really deep end and carries her head high up in the air and is a smarty cocky ewe that really attracted us to her when I saw her.

“Our motto is to cull hard, keep the numbers low and fairly good if we can at all. Every ewe in the flock is there for a reason and we only keep the very, very tops.

“We are trying really hard to breed a really good, heavy-bodied lamb for the commercial breeder, and along the way if we can hit a good pedigree breeder’s ram, that is a bonus

Showing at the Charollais premier for the first time in 2018, David’s rams sold for €1,600 and €1,500 he bought back a half share in Rockdale Tornado. In 2019, the flock entries sold for €1,350 and €1,900. A week ago the flock recorded sales of that €7,500, and €2,000.

The tradition of a commercial flock on the farm goes back to David’s grandfather, Harry Argue, and further developed by his father, David Snr, whose interest in the flock continues.

The Irish Charollais Society will complete three decades since its registration in November.

Back in 1990, there was a breed family of just over 200 females; there are now more than 250 breeders producing in excess of 6,000 lambs per year.

The Charollais originated from the Charolles commune in the Saóne-et-Loire départment in France and is described as a medium to large-size polled breed with a pinkish/grayish head that is largely free of wool and with the ability to excel in both lowland and hill flocks.

‘I knew he was a good ram but I didn’t think that he was going to make that sort of money’