Business

New marketing scheme for Hereford beef

Higher lamb returns with EBVs

LAMB PRODUCERS looking to maximise their profits – particularly this year with the extreme wet weather and lack of fodder – should pay close attention to Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) in order to combine improved carcase weights and conformation with reduced days to slaughter, if the results of Quality Meat Scotland's Scottish Sheep Strategy Better Breeding project are anything to go by.
Weather continues to affect cattle prices

THE GREEN stuff might be growing slightly more than it was, but with the cold weather continuing and grass growth up to a month late, there is little enthusiasm to invest in breeding females and younger store cattle.
Tag pin improvements boost sheep welfare, retention and management

Improvements to ear tag design by a leading Scottish manufacturer look to have countered some of the key welfare and tag retention problems experienced by sheep farmers.
Potato prices set to remain strong this season

Potato prices across Europe are set to remain historically strong as the effect of an increase in plantings is limited by poor weather and grower concerns over profitability.
Blonde champ makes 6200gns

Only eight bulls changed hands at a show and sale of pedigree British Blonde cattle at Carlisle, where the male champion and supreme overall, Alasdair McSporran's Eilean Godfather, from The New House, Innerleithen, Peebles, topped the trade at 6200gns.

Ewe hoggs to be major feature of NSA Highlandsheep

A UNIQUE multi-breed show and sale of pairs of breeding ewe hoggs will be a novel feature of the National Sheep Association's Highlandsheep event to be held at Dingwall Mart on Thursday, May 30.
Bentham hoggs reach £138

SELLING for the top price of £138 or 353p per kg at Bentham Auction Mart's annual Easter spring lamb show and supreme hogg competition was a Beltex cross hogg from Andrew Rigby, Slaidburn, purchased by Vivers Scotlamb of Annan.
Ewe hogg tops Cheviots at £520

The champion Cheviot in the main register show, a ewe hogg from Jim Farquhar, Smiddyquoy, Watten, topped the trade at a show and sale of 28 registered Cheviot females at Dingwall, last week, which included the dispersal of 89 in lamb females from WR Cameron's Amat flock.
Buoyant demand for Blackface females

Blackface sheep breeders and enthusiasts were out in huge numbers for the association's annual female show and sale at Lanark, where a top bid of 6500gns was achieved complete with a further 26 lots selling at four-figure prices.
Smearsett tops Skipton sale

The sole entry from David and Robin Booth's Smearsett flock secured the overall championship and the lead price of £1250 at a Bluefaced Leicester female show and sale at Skipton last week.

Top two Limousins sell to Morrisons

AT THEIR annual Limousin show and sale, last week, Caledonian Marts had 43 cattle forward for judging by Philip Goodwin, general manager of sponsors, Wishaw Abattoir Ltd.
Ervie Herefords sell to £4600

Buyers from as far a field as Argyll, Cheshire, Northumberland and Northern Ireland, were forward for the fourth on-farm sale of pedigree Hereford cattle from the Douglas family at Mains of Airies, Stranraer, last weekend, where Dumfries auctioneer, Harry Beggs, took the top bid of £4600.
Dairy cattle reach 2500gns at Ayr

TRADE PEAKED at 2500gns at a Holstein show and sale, at Ayr on Tuesday.
Golddigger heads to Edzell

SCOTTISH LIMOUSIN breeder, G Yarr, who runs the Portmore herd at Witton, Glenlethnot, Edzell, Angus, came home in style from last week's show and sale of pedigree bulls at Ballymena, having purchased the top priced bull at 6100gns.
31,000gns Charolais centre record

Charolais bulls sold to a centre record breaking 31,000gns at Carlisle, when the reserve junior and reserve overall champion, Whitecliffe Highlight, a 15-month-old bull from North Yorkshire breeders, Mark and Jane Hayhurst, sold to Scottish breeder, Wendy Kingaby, buying for her Utopia herd at Mains Auchmedden, New Aberdour, Fraserburgh.

Higher lamb returns with EBVs

LAMB PRODUCERS looking to maximise their profits – particularly this year with the extreme wet weather and lack of fodder – should pay close attention to Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) in order to combine improved carcase weights and conformation with reduced days to slaughter, if the results of Quality Meat Scotland's Scottish Sheep Strategy Better Breeding project are anything to go by.
Weather continues to affect cattle prices

THE GREEN stuff might be growing slightly more than it was, but with the cold weather continuing and grass growth up to a month late, there is little enthusiasm to invest in breeding females and younger store cattle.
Lamb crop drops 8%

IT COMES as no surprise that the latest forecast for the 2013 lamb crop has been revised downwards, with the new figure of 15.8m head down a massive 1.36m (8%) on the 2012 figures.
Demand for grass-fed stock on the up

IT MAY be in short supply throughout much of the country, but demand for grass and indeed grass-fed raised and finished beef and sheep has soared since horsemeat DNA was first confirmed in some processed foods on sale in British supermarkets.
Reduced EU demand for lamb

UK sheep prices may be on the up in the UK due to reduced supplies, but it appears the opposite holds true on the Continent, where the economic problems being experienced by many countries in southern Europe are having a significant effect on the trading patterns of sheep and sheep meat.

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