SIR, - I read with interest your take on the forthcoming ram sales. I must admit that I am getting a little fed up of the so called experts of the sheep world Vipond and McKenzie preaching to the greater public that the commercial tup breeders are selling an inferior product.

We in the real world have been selling rams into a particularly difficult market for in some cases decades. Remember you are only as good as your last sale. The reason we are able to continue to do this is that we are supplying the market with what it requires, and not the over fat infertile monsters some would have us believe. Anyone who believes that the modern sheep producer of the UK lives in the ‘aye been’ syndrome does not know the market.
I am in the privileged position to see thousands of commercial and pedigree sheep being sold on a weekly basis and I can honestly say that the vast majority of these animals are a credit to the folk producing them – often in very trying conditions.
We have been criticised in the past for producing over fat sheep.  Try bringing a flock of ewes through the kind of winter we have just had without some backfat.  Further, try selling prime lambs without backfat.
UK lamb is successfully bred and sold from every kind of terrain from Shetland to Cornwall and in every kind of weather you could imagine – no controlled environment for sheep.
Finally, a message for the experts. There are many sheep producers who could successfully do what they do – not so many of them could do what we do!
         

Norman Douglas,
Catslackburn
Yarrow