Today's blog is hot off the press from the sale earlier today. To give it it's proper title it was the special sale of rare and minority breeds of livestock and poultry including a show for Jacob and Ryeland sheep beforehand. Nice catchy title guys !
Whatever you wish to call it there were plenty of people (I estimate 300 at its peak) in the main ring
There were a similar number in the "Exchange" (= large metal shed, imagine B&Q without the shelving), to see the poultry sale.
What I know about poultry you could write on a quail's feet and still have some room left but I did like the silkies, the terns, and the quails (which drew the biggest crowd possibly). There were about 700 cages-worth for sale so something for almost all tastes. The quail chicks were another highlight as they frequently escaped from their cages and sped around the place creating mayhem. The unhatched quail eggs were both less mobile and considerably cheaper at about £3 a dozen compared to £10 each for the chicks.
First off in the main ring were some much bigger animals namely the horses and ponies, and the prices seemed very reasonable to the untrained eye.
One horse really got to the heart of sales such as these. Obviously at such a "do" the majority of purchesers are hobby farmers or smallholders or whatever term you want to use. Such persons (and yes I include myself here) maintain a careful balance between the world of the commercial farmer on one hand and the keeper of pets on the other. The horse in question brought out this balalce perfectly. Upon entering the ring it decided to have a good old roll in the sawdust on it's back like a dog wanting it's tummy tickling. Those in the pet camp brought out an audible "aaaah" in an "isn't that cute" kind of a way (if you made that noise at a usual weekly primestock sale at Thainstone you would get some very queer looks!) . At the same time you could hear those with more commercial leanings drawing breath and thinking about the excess of parasites which might prompt such a rolling about.
As I might have mentioned in previous posts I'm a bit of a sheep fan and so it was good to see so many on display. In terms of quantity there were obviously quite a few jacobs and around 50 ryelands because of the show (as an ex keeper of ryelands myself they were good to see and brought back many good memories too). There were also plenty of hebridean and other miracle jumpers like the soay.
It was also good to see a few examples of another breed we used to keep, Balwen welsh mountain. I was surprised the very rare castlemilk moorits were so cheap, many fetching only around £20 a head. There were some other bargain basement sheep even cheaper at about £10 which would hardly buy you a can of beer and a pizza these days. My votes on the day went to the herdwicks and the badger faced.
The whole event lasted for over five hours, which was bad news if you wanted one of the (only two) donkeys which came on last in the main ring. By then there were only about 30 people around and so it's very much harder to get a good price then rather than earlier in the day. In other parts there were the usual sales of tack, poultry equipment and some items from yesteryear which i'm sure did very useful jobs but I certainly didn't recognise many.
All in all a very good day. The queue to pay was pretty impressive but I expect most will have made it to the front by midnight. Those waiting might have seem the property adverts alongside the queue with prices for grade 3b agricultural land (="moderate") at about £7,000 per hectare (or £3,000 per acre if you still work in "old money").
Anyway, as christmas is only about 15 weeks away here's a reminder of what snow looks like, and frodo the ram.
cheers, Brian
As the Rare Breeds sale at Thainstone Mart has been postponed for a few days this post comes instead from the beauty of the Moray Firth Coast. First stop was Portsoy, a pretty little traditional fishing village with steep streets leading down to the harbour area. On occasions the place is buzzing with sailing craft and visitors due to some special event or other, but as lot of the real charm comes out on quieter days
Most of the fishing is gone these days of course but there are still a few reminders around of the few who presevere with earning a living from the sea
For some there is nothing better than walking along the seafront and looking at the stones and shells with their many shapes, colours and textures.
Others prefer to simply watch the boats bobbing in the harbours like Banff and MacDuff just further down the coast heading East.
In fact there is something for everyone. Here ends the commercial break sponsored by the Moray firth Tourist Association !
Cheers
Brian