The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
North Country Cheviot breaks auction record
Ram from Torrish Estate sells for £18,000
A new record price for a North Country Cheviot was achieved at United Auctions, Lairg, yesterday, when a ram from Torrish Estate sold for £18,000.
The annual sale, where 15 rams sold at or above £3,000, helped bolster a new centre record average of £1,157.31 (+£75.44 on the year) for 201 sold.
Surpassing the previous record of £17,000 paid for a ram from Castle Grant Home Farm was a three-shear from Neil McCorquodale’s 900-strong flock near Helmsdale, which has been shepherded for more than 45 years by Dennis Henderson.
Their record-holder is a son of the £1,000 Inkstack Impulse, purchased in 2015, and bred out of a homebred ewe.
He sold to James McCaig Farms, Wester Jawcraig, Slamannan, Falkirk, which is home to 500 Northie ewes.
Next best for Torrish at £6,000 when selling to the nearby Suisgill Estate, managed by Dennis’s son David, was a three-shear by the same sire.
The second top price of £7,000 came from Andrew Elliot’s Woodside flock, near Kelso, for a two-shear by Inkstack Victor.
He is out of an Attonburn LSD-sired ewe and sold to Robert and Becca Rennie, of the Attonburn flock, Kelso.
Earlier in the sale, Jimmy Thomson, of the Kelsocleugh flock, Kelso, forked out £6,000 for Wooler breeder Bill Elliot’s two-shear ram, Hethpool Walter, by the £7,000 Whitchesters Raptor.
Hughie MacKenzie, who manages the 1,050ewe Badanloch flock at Kinbrace, sold nine rams to average £3,433.33.
His pen of three-shears topped at £5,500 twice, firstly for a son of the £4,000 Badanloch Beast, which sold to James McCaig Farms.
The other, selling to Dunbeath Farms, was Badanloch Vodka Coke, by North Loch Naver Nomad – a stock tup which is the sire of the £11,000 Badanloch ram sold at last year’s sale.
Two other sons of Nomad made £4,800 and £4,500 for Badanloch, with the dearest sold to the Douglas family, Catslackburn, Yarrow, and the latter to David Baillie, Calla, Carnwath.
Last to sell above £4,000 for the flock was another son of Badanloch Beast, which made £4,200 to Leslie and Tina Robertson, Inkstack, Thurso.
Linhope Farming Partnership, Alnwick, also received £5,500 for a twoshear when snapped up by Neil Barclay, Harestone, Aberdeenshire.