Sir, – The average sale price of a Blackie store lamb this year was £32, yet despite this the Blackface breed are creating mickey mouse figures in the tup sale rings, where their prices do not reflect well on the stockmen that breed commercial stock from their offspring!
Why does the most valuable pure-breds of the sheep industry return so poor prices in the sale rings throughout the country?
Many of the tup trade prices are an awful lot of money to payout for one sheep, so much so that one would ask whether the testicles of the ram be made of gold, or some special sought after material.
More that 5000 lambs from a £150,000 ram would have to be sold to recover the price paid and if this ram was hard worked, it would be only fit for dog-food.
It seems strange to me that all my life working with Blackface sheep that we never got such wonderful prices, but then again if I had friends that were millionaires, £150k would only be loose change to them, as most of the monied persons in our society are out of touch with reality!
Angus A Macdonald
Balivanich,
Benbecula.
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