Pioneering Moray farmers Jenni Mcallister and Raymond Irvine notched up another milestone for their sheep at the weekend.
Their two-shear Valais Blacknose ram Highland Jazzy fetched 11,000gns (£11,550), a Scottish record for the breed.
It came at the inaugural show and sale of Valais Blacknose at Lanark Agricultural Centre.
The Valais Blacknose Society also held its Scottish grading event
The sale was run by Lawrie and Symington following the Scottish Valais Blacknose Club show.
Jenni and Raymond run two farms – Inverlochy and Mains of Inverourie – on Glenlivet Estate, near Tomintoul.
It is about 10 years since they bought their first flock of Valais Blacknose sheep.
Jenni said that trip to Switzerland was the first of many as they built up their herd.
She even learnt German to make communications easier on her frequent visits to the breed’s spiritual home in the canton of Valais in the south-western part of the country.
“They just looked so different,” said Jenni, who has a background in IT but grew up on a farm near Loch Lomond.
Her partner and his dad, Johnny Irvine, keep pedigree cattle.
Jenni and Raymond’s Scottish first
Jenni and Raymond’s first flock of Valais Blacknose was the first in Scotland and only the second in the UK.
The couple went on to co-found the Valais Blacknose Sheep Society UK in 2015.
And they were instrumental in organising the new society’s first big event, the Blacknose Beauties National Show and Sale, in Carlisle, in 2016.
A merger with the Valais Blacknose Breed Society created the Valais Blacknose Society.
Jenni and Raymond now have 80 of the unusual-looking sheep, which Jenni described as “quite hardy”.
But they’re not keen on the rain and tend to head for shelter in wet weather, she added.
There are now about 80,000 Valais Blacknose sheep in the UK.
The record price to date was set in Carlisle just a few weeks ago.
Tom Blackwood, of Stewarton, sold his Blacknose Beauties female champion, Ayrshire Ingrid, to the owners of a country house hotel in Wales for £30,000gns (£31,500).
Highland Jazzy was the fourth sheep into the ring at Lanark on Saturday, having earlier won the male champion’s rosette.
He is sired by Highland Furryboots and out of the homebred dam Highland Erin II.
After a fury of ringside and online bids, “Jazzy” was purchased by Messrs Wood, of Prendwick Farm, Whittingham, Northumberland.
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