In 1987 I took over the management of the beautiful hill farm of Kettleshiel. It had previously been farmed successfully by my great uncle Andy, who had just died at an advanced age.

Times were hyper inflationary then and for the last few years of his life he hadn’t attended the annual lamb sales at Hawick. The shepherds told me that when they reported how the sale had gone, he was always amazed at the prices his lambs had made.

When the tup sales came round, he never understood how they had to pay so much. Uncle Andy, who earlier in life had been at the top with Blackies from his other farm, Hawburton and had bred a record-breaking ram lamb in 1956, had no problem with paying a high price.

Nevertheless, he would have been flabbergasted at record prices today.
Like the ratio of the salaries of industry bosses to the wages of those they employ, the ratio of record ram prices to commercial prime lambs grows ever wider.

The Scottish Farmer report of the recent Lanark Texel ram sale mentioned ‘a shortage of breeders’ sheep’. I saw it the same way, however others obviously didn’t and put their hands deep in their pockets to prove it.

We weren’t buying, but the two lambs I liked best made thousands but not tens of thousands. My judgement improved at Carlisle.

One of my picks was champion and the other was third top price. Beauty remains in the eye of the beholder and ‘twas ever thus.

In contrast to the Suffolk sale at Stirling, where only nine lambs, all from one vendor, had EBVs, 194 out of 599 lambs catalogued at Lanark Texel sale had their performance figures printed. Of the 599, 376 were conceived by embryo transfer.

These included 13 out of the 14 photographed in The Scottish Farmer.

Very many of the 376 had one or both their parents got by ET and many of their parents, too, were by ET.

ET is a powerful tool, whether for genetic improvements or maybe just to get a stronger ram lamb for the autumn sales, but this much? Well, you can hae your thochts.

The Texel is now on the crest of the wave. As a boy, I used to watch the Bluefaced Leicesters being sold at Kelso Ram Sale. I thought they were the freakiest sheep I had ever seen.

Most of the shearlings made £25 and the better ones £30. Their Border Leicester cousins were at that time ‘Kings of the Ring.’

The record price was £2300 and they would average many times that of the Bluefaceds. Then, most of the local Border Leicester ram breeders went to Lanark the following Wednesday to buy their stud sheep.

Even as a callow youth, it seemed crazy to me that the genetics of the big upland commercial flocks were so influenced by the whim of West Country dairymen running a few sheep lightly stocked among their cows.

After that, the Suffolk became the kingpin at Kelso. In 1984, when I first started selling, 3886 Suffolks were sold and 75 Texels.

I didn’t think much of the white breed back then. They certainly had more gigot than our own breeds, but were so short, a pair of legs in the middle would have done.

In 1997, 3833 Suffolks and 1241 Texels were sold. In 2007, the balance was 2164 to 1797 and last year 947 Suffolks were sold compared to 1577 Texels. Most of the top prices were for Texels.

Kelso, unlike Lanark or Stirling, is primarily a commercial sale which should give Suffolk breeders food for thought. The position of the breed is similar to that of our native cattle breeds 50 years ago when the continentals swept them aside.

The resistance of Angus, Hereford and Shorthorn breeders to weighing and measuring was powerful.

Only the eventual realisation that commercial cattle breeders valued the information and paid more to those who provided it, made them change.

Nowadays, very few bulls at main sales don’t have EBVs in the catalogue.

The Suffolk is one of our best sheep breeds. Its strength is its genetic diversity with three main types, the New Zealand, the performance and the traditional show type.

Even those most heavily committed to one kind, will have to consider introduction of something outside to avoid hobby breeder status.

Being on the crest of the wave – while nice at the time – has sometimes in the past led to a divorce from commercial reality and history demonstrates that the good times don’t always last forever.

The Texel Breed Society is, from my observation, very far seeing and is investing heavily in programmes to enhance the breed’s qualities and tackle its problems. Maybe the time is now to examine the insidious influence of long-term continuous ET on the maternal qualities of the breed, in particular ease of lambing.

It is too easy to become a victim of ones success. High prices can obscure the fact that continued popularity is and always has been, in the hands of the commercial customer.

While experience teaches, slavishly harping on about ‘how it was done in my day’ can obscure what progress has been made. Fashion changes too, for good or ill, or mostly because folk need a change.

‘Planned replaceability’ is the term the car industry uses. The Texels starting baring bellies a few years ago. Belly wool is almost worthless and is difficult to shear so the trend was beneficial.

At Lanark, all bar one of the photographed lambs were bare up the front or on the shoulder. Some others had peeled right over their necks or had a line of kemp up their spines.

Texels have beautiful wool. It seems a shame.

I recall a conversation with uncle Andy half a century ago. He had given up the tup trade by then and I was totally absorbed as he discussed the fashions in the Blackface breed throughout his lifetime.

Most of these were inconsequential, involving facial colouration. He really deplored the increased heating and setting of horns. In times gone by, it just wasn’t the done thing.