Scott Donaldson, Harrison & Hetherington Managing Director, gives his round up of 2023
“2023 has been another very successful year for the Harrison & Hetherington Farmstock Team.
The year set off with cattle values continuing to climb. Store and Prime cattle were in big demand as stronger cattle regularly breached the £2000 mark, and values well above the £3/Kg mark became the new norm for quality butchers’ cattle.
But it was the Cast Cow market that showed the greatest improvement, with records being broken almost daily as the biggest and best cows reached £3000 as we headed through April and May.
Hogg feeders finally hit the jackpot around the same time, too late for many but enough to drive confidence back into the store lamb trade.
The dairy trade had been flying on the back of a very buoyant milk price, but as global milk markets began to fall the dairy cattle trade followed suit and only recently has begun to show signs of recovering.
In 2022 our customers were faced with unprecedented rises in input costs, but 2023 saw this pressure ease as energy, feed and fertilizer prices dropped marginally. However, after the heatwave of 2022, the summer of 2023 didn’t seem to last long and by the end of June the rain came and kept coming, making main crop silage and harvest time a very frustrating period for many.
Our sale numbers have been strong across all our eight sales centres throughout the year, testament to the commitment and dedication of the H&H Farmstock team, who consistently strive to achieve the best results for our customers, every day of the week.
The nationally renowned Borderway Wednesday sales create a real buzz, with over 1600 head of cattle a week in 2023 and buyers forward for every class from rearing calves to the best of store cattle.
Selling over 7000 Dairy Cattle annually, Carlisle is the number one Dairy Sales Centre in the North of England, if not the UK. With an average of 450 head a week, our Cast Cow ring remains the largest in the country.
We continue to strive to be the go-to salesmen for pedigree beef cattle and sheep, and with over 2000 pedigree beef cattle and 10,000 pedigree sheep passing through our rings in the past 12 months, here at Borderway we are well placed to make the most of your pedigree stock.
At the famous Norbrook Kelso Ram Sales, Harrison & Hetherington offered 1817 Rams for sale – 42% of the total entry.
The record books were rewritten at the C District Swaledale Ram sales in Kirkby Stephen back in October when not one, but two shearlings rang the bell at £105,000.
Tuesday nights at Kirkby Stephen have set the bar for the prime sheep trade over the past 12 months as farmers flock from across the UK to take advantage of a consistently strong trade.
Middleton in Teesdale Mart topped the Spring born suckled calf trade this Autumn with a remarkable sale average of £1200 for top quality hill bred calves at only six months old.
The native cattle sale at our St Boswells Mart at the end of September is without doubt the best show of mainly Aberdeen Angus cross cattle in the country, and this year’s sale was no exception with averages rising nearly £200 on the year.
The ‘Newcastleton Bluegrey Cattle sale’ now held at Lockerbie Mart in mid-October is the only one of its kind for Bluegrey heifers in the country, and with buyers in attendance from the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland to Ireland, Wales and Cornwall the trade was electric with in calf heifers topping out at £2600.
The famous ‘Alston Moor’ sale of North of England ewe lambs held at Lazonby Auction Mart at the end of September saw the most wonderful entry of sheep with a trade to match resulting in a sale average of £130, a tribute to the producers of these quality breeding sheep.
So, what can we look forward to in 2024?
The beef trade looks set to remain buoyant as numbers tighten and demand remains strong, despite Channel 4’s best efforts to turn the British public off our top quality, sustainable and healthy produce.
With lambing results poor across the country last Spring, we expect numbers to tighten and trade to remain strong or even firm as we head into the New Year.
There is no doubt that breeding stock numbers of both suckler cows and hill ewes are reducing across our region as the allure of environmental schemes, the lack of succession on family farms and staff shortages bite.
Beef from the dairy herd is going to continue to play a bigger part in our business in the coming years, and we believe that we have the marketplace to ensure that producers achieve the values they deserve at whatever stage of the process they chose to go to market.
It will be 50 years this year since Harrison & Hetherington moved out from Botchergate in the middle of Carlisle to Rosehill back in 1974.
There will be a few celebrations to mark the occasion, the dates of which will be released in the coming months. But more importantly, H&H are planning a considerable upgrade to the Borderway facility in the shape of new sheds, improved handling systems and a more modern milking parlour to name just a few of the changes that will make Borderway an essential hub for our farming communities for another 50 years.”