Blackface ram lambs met a selective trade on day two of the breed’s annual sale at Lanark, with a 68% clearance for the 177 rams forward, resulting in 121 lots selling to average £4,832.
Demand upheld for the best of the lambs however, with 21 hitting the five-figure mark, selling to a top of £45,000 for one from Hugh and Alan Blackwood, Auldhouseburn, Muirkirk.
Sired by a £30,000 Crossflatt and out of a ewe by £160,000 Elmscleugh, he sold to a consortium of four buyers – John Finlay, Blackcraig, Corsock; the Ramsays at Milnmark, Dalry; J Mitchell and Son, Little Larg, New Luce; and W Stevenson, Balrazzie, Ballantrae.
The day’s second top price of £32,000, also came from Auldhouseburn. It was a son of last year’s £160,000 Dyke purchase and sold to Thomas Muirhead, Orchilmore, Blair Atholl, along with Richard Caruthers, Merkland, Thornhill; Mitchellslacks Farm, also Thornhill; and the Blackwoods’ Dalblair flock. At £17,000, another £160,000 Dyke son from Auldhouseburn sold to Rory Kerr, Middleton Farm.
Auldhouseburn sell top two prices at 45,000 and £32,000
After selling shearling rams up to £32,000 the previous day, Jimmy and Donald MacGregor had another successful go with lambs from their Dyke flock, based at Milton of Campsie.
Their first two in the ring made £22,000 apiece – both sons of the £160,000 Dyke, which they had kept a quarter share in. The first sold to Billy Graham, Craigdarroch, Sanquhar and Una Hodge, Kirkland, Kirkconnel, with a third share retained by Dyke.
The second £22,000 seller went to Alastair McArthur, Nunnerie, Elvanfoot, Eoin Blackwood, Dalblair, and the Dunlops from Upper Wellwood, Muirkirk, who themselves sold a lamb at £11,000.
Dyke takes £22,000 twice
The Ramsay family achieved a top of £16,000 for lambs from their Milnmark flock, based at Dalry. Sired by a £32,000 Midlock, that one went to the Kay family, Hartside, Lammermuir and Alan McClymont, Kirkstead, Yarrow.
Two lambs hit the £15,000 price tag, with the first coming from Andrew Kay, Gass, Straiton. A son of a £48,000 Midlock, that one went to Auldhouseburn, buying jointly with the Campbells, Glenrath, Peebles.
The other at £15,000 was a son of a £14,000 Loughash, from the Dunlop family, Elmscleugh, Dunbar, with that one selling to Gass, along with John Harkin, Loughash, Strabane.
Best for the Campbells’ Glenrath flock was one at £14,000, by a £16,000 Blackhouse, which sold to the Gass flock and Malcolm Coubrough, Hartside, Lamington.
Also at £14,000, was one from Sam McClymont, Tinnis, Yarrow, which sold to Billy Renwick, Blackhouse, Yarrow and the Kays at Hartside, Lammermuir; and one from the Jacksons at Pole, Lochgoilhead, which sold to Jim Boswell, Burnhead, Darvel, along with Richard Carruthers, Kingledores, Peebles, and Matthew Hamilton, South Cobbinshaw, West Calder.
Several other flocks hit £10,000 or more
Archie and John MacGregor’s Allanfauld lambs, from Kilsyth, sold to a top of £12,000, to Billy Graham, Craigdarroch, Sanquhar, while one from Paul Coulson’s High Staward flock at Hexham made the same money to the Patersons, Dunruchan, Crieff.
Thomas Muirhead enjoyed a strong trade with lambs from his Orchilmore flock, based at Blair Atholl. His pen number one, by an £82,000 Loughash, sold at £12,000 to Northern Ireland buyers Brian Devine and Charlie Harkin, while the next one in made £10,000 to Sanny Blackwood, Greenside, Muirkirk, and Duncan MacGregor, Burnhead, Kilsyth.
A further five ram lambs made £10,000, from the Crossflatt, Parkhall and The Rock flocks, plus two from the Loughash flock.