Aberdeen-Angus breeders were out in force at Thainstone Centre last week, for the annual Black Beauty Bonanza show of calves and yearlings, which attracted just shy of 100 entries from 28 leading herds throughout Scotland.
The Highland Cattle Society’s annual autumn show and sale made a welcome return to Oban, with a record breaking price of 10,000gns for a yearling heifer and a new high of 6700gns paid a female calf.
Producing even crops of well-fleshed calves from home-bred replacement females is proving a winning formula for the Stirling family, who run a profitable beef suckler cow herd on their 1500-acre upland unit on the outskirts of Carrbridge, in Strathspey.
A HIGHLAND pony from Shona Halford was champion of champions at Sutherland Show, last Saturday.
averages: 18 Holstein cows in milk, £1366.66; 88 Holstein heifers in milk, £1728.62; 33 West Newton British Friesian dispersal, £1002.72; 11 British Friesian, £1650.00; 23 Montbeliarde and Fleckvieh crosses in milk, £1443.47; seven Ayrshire heifers, £1800.00; 103 New Zealand Friesian summer calving cows, £659.03;
A YOUNG heifer from the Jones family, Caersws, Powys, was awarded the supreme championship at the Hereford National Christmas Calf Show, staged at Shrewsbury, last week.
OVER the course of 2018, auctioneer for second-hand agricultural machinery and plant, Cheffins, based in East Anglia, has held 41 sales, with more than 35,000 lots offered throughout the year, at the firm's Cambridge machinery sales at Sutton, on-farm auctions and vintage sales, with overall sales totalling more than £50million, £1million more than 2017.
SOME 4428 prime lambs sold through United Auctions' Stirling centre, last week, which included a show of 400 Blackface lambs judged by Andrew Argo.
averages: 125 straws of semen, £91.60; 44 embryos, £570.45; four flushes, £2950; 15 heifers, £5873; 16 live lots, £6359.06.
averages: 47 females with calves at foot, £2721; 10 in-calf heifers, £1864; 21maiden heifers, £1515
